THE  CRITICAL  PERIOD  OP 

AMERICAN   HISTORY 

1783-1789 


BY 


JOHN  FISKE 

n 


I  am  uneasy  and  apprehensive,  more  so  than  during  the  war. 
JAY  TO  WASHINGTON,  June  27, 17°^ 


BOSTON   AND   NEW   YORK 
HOUGHTON   MIFFLIN   COMPANY 


- 


COPYRIGHT,   1888,  BY  JOHN  FISKE 
COPYRIGHT,    1916,    BY   ABBY   M.   FISKE 

ALL  RIGHTS   RESERVED 


To 

tfY  DEAR  CLASSMATES, 

FRANCIS  LEE  HIGG1NSON 

AND 

CHARLES  CABOT  JACKSON, 

/  DEDICATE  THIS  BOOK. 


417652 


PEEFAOE. 


THIS  book  contains  the  substance  of  the  course 
of  lectures  given  in  the  Old  South  Meeting-House 
in  Boston  in  December,  1884,  at  the  Washington 
University  in  St.  Louis  in  May,  1885,  and  in  the 
theatre  of  the  University  Club  in  New  York  in 
March,  1886.  In  its  present  shape  it  may  serve 
as  a  sketch  of  the  political  history  of  the  United 
States  from  the  end  of  the  Revolutionary  War  to 
the  adoption  of  the  Federal  Constitution.  It  makes 
no  pretensions  to  completeness,  either  as  a  summary 
of  the  events  of  that  period  or  as  a  discussion  of 
the  political  questions  involved  in  them.  I  have 
aimed  especially  at  grouping  facts  in  such  a  way  as 
to  bring  out  and  emphasize  their  causal  sequence, 
and  it  is  accordingly  hoped  that  the  book  may  prove 
useful  to  the  student  of  American  history. 

My  title  was  suggested  by  the  fact  of  Thomas 
Paine's  stopping  the  publication  of  the  "Crisis," 
on  hearing  the  news  of  the  treaty  of  1783,  with  the 
remark,  "The  times  that  tried  men's  souls  are 
over."  Commenting  upon  this,  on  page  55  of  the 
present  work,  I  observed  that  so  far  from  the  crisis 
being  over  in  1783,  the  next  five  years  were  to  be. 


Vi  PREFACE. 

the  most  critical  time  of  all.  I  had  not  then  seen 
Mr.  Trescot's  "  Diplomatic  History  of  the  Admin 
istrations  of  Washington  and  Adams,"  on  page  9 
of  which  he  uses  almost  the  same  words :  "  It  must 
not  be  supposed  that  the  treaty  of  peace  secured 
the  national  life.  Indeed,  it  would  be  more  correct 
to  say  that  the  most  critical  period  of  the  country's 
history  embraced  the  time  between  1ZS&  and  the 
adoption  of  the  Constitution  in  1788." 

That  period  was  preeminently  the  turning-point 
in  the  development  of  political  society  in  the  west 
ern  hemisphere.  Though  small  in  their  mere  di 
mensions,  the  events  here  summarized  were  in  a  re 
markable  degree  germinal  events,  fraught  with 
more  tremendous  alternatives  of  future  welfare  or 
misery  for  mankind  than  it  is  easy  for  the  imagina 
tion  to  grasp.  As  we  now  stand  upon  the  thresh 
old  of  that  mighty  future,  in  the  light  of  which  all 
events  of  the  past  are  clearly  destined  to  seem 
dwindled  in  dimensions  and  significant  only  in  the 
ratio  of  their  potency  as  causes ;  as  we  discern  how 
large  a  part  of  that  future  must  be  the  outcome  of 
the  creative  work,  for  good  or  ill,  of  men  of  Eng 
lish  speech ;  we  are  put  into  the  proper  mood  for 
estimating  the  significance  of  the  causes  which  de 
termined  a  century  ago  that  the  continent  of  North 
America  should  be  dominated  by  a  single  powerful 
and  pacjflo-  federal  nation  instead  of  being  par* 
celled  out  among  forty  or  fifty  small  communities, 
wasting  their  strength  and  lowering  their  moral 


PREFACE.  vil 

tone  by  perpetual  warfare,  like  tlie  states  of  an 
cient  Greece,  or  by  perpetual  preparation  for  war 
fare,  like  the  nations  of  modern  Europe.  In  my 
book  entitled  "American  Political  Ideas,  viewed 
from  the  Standpoint  of  Universal  History,"  I  have 
tried  to  indicate  the  pacific  influence  likely  to  be 
exerted  upon  the  world  by  the  creation  and  main 
tenance  of  such  a  political  structure  as  our  Fed 
eral  Union.  The  present  narrative  may  serve  as 
a  commentary  upon  what  I  had  in  mind  on  page 
133  of  that  book,  in  speaking  of  the  work  of  our 
Federal  Convention  as  "the  finest  specimen  of 
constructive  statesmanship  that  the  world  has  ever 
seen."  On  such  a  point  it  is  pleasant  to  find  one's 
self  in  accord  with  a  statesman  so  wise  and  noble 
as  Mr.  Gladstone,  whose  opinion  is  here  quoted  on 
page  223. 

To  some  persons  it  may  seem  as  if  the  years 
1861-65  were  of  more  cardinal  importance  than 
the  years  1783-89.  Our  civil  war  was  indeed  an 
event  of  prodigious  magnitude,  as  measured  by  any 
standard  that  history  affords;  and  there  can  be 
little  doubt  as  to  its  decisiveness.  The  measure  of 
that  decisiveness  is  to  be  found  in  the  completeness 
of  the  reconciliation  that  has  already,  despite  the 
feeble  wails  of  unscrupulous  place-hunters  and  un- 
teachable  bigots,  cemented  the  Federal  Union  so 
powerfully  that  all  likelihood  of  its  disruption 
may  be  said  to  have  disappeared  forever.  When 
we  consider  this  wonderful  harmony  which  so  soon 


Viil  PREFACE. 

has  followed  the  deadly  struggle,  we  may  well  be 
lieve  it  to  be  the  index  of  such  a  stride  toward  the 
ultimate  pacification  of  mankind  as  was  never 
made  before.  But  it  was  the  work  done  in  the 
years  1783-89  that  created  a  federal  nation  capa 
ble  of  enduring  the  storm  and  stress  of  the  years 
1861—65.  It  was  in  the  earlier  crisis  that  the  pliant 
twig  was  bent ;  and  as  it  was  bent,  so  has  it  grown ; 
until  it  has  become  indeed  a  goodly  and  a  sturdy 
tree. 
CAMBRIDGE,  October  10, 1888. 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  L 

RESULTS   OF   YORKTOWN.  PAGE 

Fall  of  Lord  North's  ministry .  1 

Sympathy  between  British  Whigs  and  the  revolutionary 

party  in  America  .....•••  2 

It  weakened  the  Whig  party  in  England  ....  3 

Character  of  Lord  Shelburne 4 

Political  instability  of  the  Rockingham  ministry  .  .  5,  6 

Obstacles  in  the  way  of  a  treaty  of  peace  .  .  .  .  7,  8 

Oswald  talks  with  Franklin 9-11 

Grenville  has  an  interview  with  Vergennes  ....  12 

Effects  of  Rodney's  victory 13 

Misunderstanding  between  Fox  and  Shelburne  ...  14 

Fall  of  the  Rockingham  ministry 15 

Shelburne  becomes  prime  minister 16 

Defeat  of  the  Spaniards  and  French  at  Gibraltar  .  .  17 

French  policy  opposed  to  American  interests  .  .  .  18 

The  valley  of  the  Mississippi;  Aranda's  prophecy  .  .  19 

The  Newfoundland  fisheries .20 

Jay  detects  the  schemes  of  Vergennes  ....  21 

And  sends  Dr.  Vaughan  to  visit  Shelburne  ....  22 
John  Adams  arrives  in  Paris  and  joins  with  Jay  in  insisting 

upon  a  separate  negotiation  with  England  .  .  23,  24 
The  separate  American  treaty,  as  agreed  upon: 

1.  Boundaries 25 

2.  Fisheries ;  commercial  intercourse         ...  26 

3.  Private  debts 27 

4.  Compensation  of  loyalists 28-32 

Secret  article  relating  to  the  Yazoo  boundary       ...  33 

Vergennes  does  not  like  the  way  in  which  it  has  been  done  33 
On  the  part  of  the  Americans  it  was  a  great  diplomatic 

victory 34 


X  CONTENTS. 

Which  the  commissioners  won  by  disregarding  the  instruc 
tions  of  Congress  and  acting  on  their  own  responsibility  35 

The  Spanish  treaty 36 

The  French  treaty 37 

Coalition  of  Fox  with  North 38-42 

They  attack  the  American  treaty  in  Parliament        .        .          43 

And  compel  Shelburne  to  resign 44 

Which  leaves  England  without  a  government,  while  for 

several  weeks  the  king  is  too  angry  to  appoint  ministers       44 
Until  at  length  he  succumbs  to  the  coalition,  which  pres 
ently  adopts  and  ratifies  the  American  treaty        .        .       <i5 
The  coalition  ministry  is  wrecked  upon  Fox's  India  Bill      46 
Constitutional  crisis  ends  in  the  overwhelming  victory  of 

Pitt  in  the  elections  of  May,  1784 47 

And  this,  although  apparently  a  triumph  for  the  king,  was 
really  a  death-blow  to  his  system  of  personal  govern 
ment  48,49 

CHAPTER  II. 

THE   THIRTEEN   COMMONWEALTHS. 

Cessation  of  hostilities  in  America 50 

Departure  of  the  British  troops        •         •         •         •         •  51 
Washington  resigns  his  command         .....       52 
And  goes  home  to  Mount  Vernon    .....          53 
His  "  legacy  "  to  the  American  people        ....       54'' 
The  next  five  years  were  the  most  critical  years  in  Amer 
ican  history .         .55 

Absence  of  a  sentiment  of  union,  and  consequent  danger  of 

anarchy 56,  57 

European  statesmen,  whether  hostile  or  friendly,  had  little 

faith  in  the  stability  of  the  Union        ....       58 

False  historic  analogies    .......  59 

Influence  of  railroad  and  telegraph  upon  the  perpetuity  of 

the  Union 60 

Difficulty  of  travelling  a  hundred  years  ago        ...       61 
Local  jealousies  and  antipathies,  an  inheritance  from  prime 
val  savagery 62,  63 

Conservative  character  of  the  American  Revolution    .         .      64 
State  governments  remodelled ;  assemblies  continued  from 

colonial  times 65 

Origin  of  the  senates  in  the  governor's  council  of  assistants       66 
Governors  viewed  with  suspicion          .        .         .         •        .67 


CONTENTS.  xi 

Analogies  with  British  institutions      .         .        •        .        >»      68 

The  judiciary *  69 

Restrictions  upon  suffrage  .  .  .  ,  .  .  .70 
Abolition  of  primogeniture,  entails,  and  manorial  privileges  71 
Steps  toward  the  abolition  of  slavery  and  the  slave-trade  72—75 
Progress  toward  religious  freedom  >  *  .,  .  76,  77 

Church  and  state  in  Virginia  .         •         .         •          78,  79 

Persecution  of  dissenters •  80 

Madison  and  the  Religious  Freedom  Act  ....  81 
Temporary  overthrow  of  the  church  ....  82 

Difficulties  in  regard  to  ordination;   the  case  of  Mason 

Weems     .  83 

Ordination  of  Samuel  Seabury  by  non-jurors  at  Aberdeen  .  84 
Francis  Asbury  and  the  Methodists  ....  85 

Presbyterians  and  Congregationalists 86 

Roman  Catholics 87 

Except  in  the  instance  of  slavery,  all  the  changes  described 
in  this  chapter  were  favourable  to  the  union  of  the 

states 88 

But  while  the  state  governments,  in  all  these  changes,  are 
seen  working  smoothly,  we  have  next  to  observe,  by 
contrast,  the  clumsiness  and  inefficiency  of  the  federal 
government 89 

CHAPTER  III. 

THE   LEAOTJE   OF  FRIENDSHIP. 

The  several  states  have  never  enjoyed  complete  sovereignty  90 
But  in  the  very  act  of  severing  their  connection  with  Great 

Britain,  they  entered  into  some  sort  of  union  .  .  91 
Anomalous  character  of  the  Continental  Congress  .  .  92 
The  articles  of  confederation ;  they  sought  to  establish  a 

"  league  of  friendship  "  between  the  states  .  .  93-97 
But  failed  to  create  a  federal  government  endowed  with 

real  sovereignty 98-100 

Military  weakness  of  the  government  .  .  .  101-103 
Extreme  difficulty  of  obtaining  a  revenue  .  .  .  104, 105 
Congress,  being  unable  to  pay  the  army,  was  afraid  of  it  .  106 
Supposed  scheme  for  making  Washington  king  .  .  .  107 
Greene's  experience  in  South  Carolina  ....  108 
Gates' s  staff  officers  and  the  Newburgh  address  .  .  .  109 
The  danger  averted  by  Washington  .  .  .  .  110,  111 
Congress  driven  from  Philadelphia  by  mutinous  soldiers  .  112 


Xii  CONTENTS. 

The  Commutation  Act  denounced  in  New  England  .  .  113 

Order  of  the  Cincinnati 114-117 

Reasons  for  the  dread  which  it  inspired  .  .  .  .  118 
Congress  finds  itself  unable  to  carry  out  the  provisions  of 

the  treaty  with  Great  Britain 119 

Persecution  of  the  loyalists  ....,,  120,  121 
It  was  especially  severe  in  New  York  ,  ,  122 

Trespass  Act  of  1784  directed  against  the  loyalists  ,  .  123 
Character  and  early  career  of  Alexander  Hamilton  .  124-126 
The  case  of  Rutgers  v.  Waddington  ....  127,  128 
Wholesale  emigration  of  Tories  ....  129,  130 
Congress  unable  to  enforce  payment  of  debts  to  British 

creditors ,  131 

England  retaliates  by  refusing  to  surrender  the  fortresses 

on  the  northwestern  frontier       ....        132,  133 

CHAPTER  IV. 

DRIFTING  TOWARD  ANARCHY. 

The  barbarous  superstitions  of  the  Middle  Ages  concerning 

trade  were  still  rife  in  the  eighteenth  century  .  .134 

The  old  theory  of  the  uses  of  a  colony       ....         135 

Pitt's  unsuccessful  attempt  to  secure  free  trade  between 
Great  Britain  and  the  United  States  .... 

Ship-building  in  New  England 137 

British  navigation  acts  and  orders  in  council  directed  against 

American  commerce  .......  138 

John  Adams  tried  in  vain  to  negotiate  a  commercial  treaty 

with  Great  Britain 139,  140 

And  could  see  no  escape  from  the  difficulties  except  in  sys 
tematic  reprisal 141 

But  any  such  reprisal  was  impracticable,  for  the  several 

states  imposed  conflicting  duties  .....  142 

Attempts  to  give  Congress  the  power  of  regulating  com 
merce  were  unsuccessful 143,  144 

And  the  several  states  began  to  make  commercial  war  upon 

one  another 145 

Attempts  of  New  York  to  oppress  New  Jersey  and  Con 
necticut  146 

Retaliatory  measures  of  the  two  latter  states    .         .         .         147 

The  quarrel  between  Connecticut  and  Pennsylvania  over  the 

possession  of  the  valley  of  Wyoming  .  .  .  148-150 


CONTENTS.  xiii 

The  quarrel  between  New  York  and  New  Hampshire  over 

the  possession  of  the  Green  Mountains        .         .          151-153 
Failure  of  American  diplomacy  because  European  states 
could  not  tell  whether  they  were  dealing  with  one  nation 

or  with  thirteen 154,  155 

Failure  of  American  credit ;  John  Adams  begging  in  Hol 
land        156,  157_ 

The  Barbary  pirates 158 

American  citizens  kidnapped  and  sold  into  slavery  .  .  159 
Lord  Sheffield's  outrageous  pamphlet  .  l6€ 

Tripoli's  demand  for  blackmail  ...,„.  161 
Congress  unable  to  protect  American  citizens  ,  .  ,  162 
Financial  distress  after  the  Revolutionary  War  ,  ,  163,  164^ 

State  of  the  coinage 165 

Cost  of  the  war  in  money  ^         *         t         >     166 

Robert  Morris  and  his  immense  services  .         >         167 

The  craze  for  paper  money    .  »         «         •  168 

Agitation  in  the  southern  and  middle  states      ,.         *          169-171 

Distress  in  New  England 172 

Imprisonment  for  debt       .......         173 

Rag-money  victorious  in  Rhode  Island;  the  "  Know  Ye  " 

measures 174-176 

Rag-money  defeated  in  Massachusetts ;  the  Shays  insurrec 
tion          177-181 

The  insurrection  suppressed  by  state  troops      .        •        •         182 

Conduct  of  the  neighbouring  states 183 

The  rebels  pardoned 184 

Timidity  of  Congress 185,  186 

CHAPTER  V. 

GERMS  OF  NATIONAL  SOVEREIGNTY. 

Creation  of  a  national  domain  beyond  the  AUeghanies  187,  188 
Conflicting  claims  to  the  western  territory  .  .  .  189 
Claims  of  Massachusetts  and  Connecticut  .  .  .  189,  190 
Claims  of  New  York .  k  .  .  .  .  .  .  190 

Virginia's  claims 191 

Maryland's  novel  and  beneficent  suggestion  ...  192 
The  several  states  yield  their  claims  in  favour  of  the  United 

States  .        .        .        .        .        .        .        .         193,  194 

Magnanimity  of  Virginia 195 

Jefferson  proposes  a  scheme  of  government  for  the  north 
western  territory 196 


CONTENTS. 

Names  of  the  proposed  ten  states      .  .        197 

Jefferson  wishes  to  prohibit  slavery  in  the  national  domain  198 
North  Carolina's  cession  of  western  lands  ,  .  .  198 
John  Sevier  and  the  state  of  Franklin  ....  200,  201 

The  northwestern  territory 202 

Origin  of  the  Ohio  company 203 

The  Ordinance  of  1787 204-206 

Theory  of  folk-land  upon  which  the  ordinance  was  based    .     207 
Spain,  hearing  of  the  secret  article  in  the  treaty  of  1783, 
loses  her  temper  and  threatens  to  shut  up  the  Missis 
sippi  River 208,  209 

Gardoqui  and  Jay 210 

Threats  of  secession  in  Kentucky  and  New  England  .  211 
Washington's  views  on  the  political  importance  of  canals 

between  east  and  west 212 

His  far-sighted  genius  and  self-devotion  ....  213 
Maryland  confers  with  Virginia  regarding  the  navigation  of 

the  Potomac 214 

The  Madison-Tyler  motion  in  the  Virginia  legislature  .  215 
Convention  at  Annapolis,  Sept.  11,  1786  ....  216 
Hamilton's  address  calling  for  a  convention  at  Philadelphia  217 
The  impost  amendment  defeated  by  the  action  of  New 

York ;  last  ounce  upon  the  camel's  back    .        .        218-220 

Sudden  changes  in  popular  sentiment 221 

The  Federal  Convention  meets  at  Philadelphia,  May,  1787  222 
Mr.  Gladstone's  opinion  of  the  work  of  the  convention  .  223 
The  men  who  were  assembled  there  .  .  .  224,  225 

Character  of  James  Madison 226,  227 

The  other  leading  members 228 

Washington  chosen  president  of  the  convention    .  .    229 

CHAPTER  VI. 

THE   FEDERAL  CONVENTION. 

Why  the  proceedings  of  the  convention  were  kept  secret  for 

so  many  years 230 

Difficulty  of  the  problem  to  be  solved      ....         231 

Symptoms  of  cowardice  repressed  by  Washington's  impas 
sioned  speech 232 

The  root  of  all  the  difficulties ;  the  edicts  of  the  federal 
government  had  operated  only  upon  states,  not  upon 
individuals,  and  therefore  could  not  be  enforced  with 
out  danger  of  war  .  .  .  .  .  .  233-235 


CONTENTS.  xv 

The  Virginia  plan,  of  which  Madison  was  the  chief  author, 

offered  a  radical  cure 236 

And  was  felt  to  be  revolutionary  in  its  character  .  237-239 
Fundamental  features  of  the  Virginia  plan  .  .  240,  241 

How  it  was  at  first  received 242 

The  House  of  Representatives  must  he  directly  elected  hy 

the  people 243 

Question  as  to  the  representation  of  states  brings  out  the 

antagonism  between  large  and  small  states  .         .         .     244 
William  Paterson  presents  the   New  Jersey  plan;    not  a 

radical  cure,  hut  a  feeble  palliative       ....     245 
Struggle  between  the  Virginia  and  New  Jersey  plans      .  246-249 
The  Connecticut  compromise,  according  to  which  the  na 
tional  principle  is  to  prevail  in  the  House  of  Repre 
sentatives,  and  the   federal  principle   in   the  Senate, 
meets  at  first  with  fierce  opposition      .         .         .  ...250,  251 

But  is  at  length  adopted 252 

And  proves  a  decisive  victory  for  Madison  and  his  methods  253 
A  few  irreconcilable  members  go  home  in  dudgeon  .  .  254 
But  the  small  states,  having  been  propitiated,  are  suddenly 

converted  to  Federalism,  and  make  the  victory  complete     255 

Vague  dread  of  the  future  west 255 

The  struggle  between  pro-slavery  and  anti-slavery  parties 
began  in  the  convention,  and  was  quieted  by  two  com 
promises  256 

Should  representation  be  proportioned  to  wealth  or  to  popu 
lation?  257 

Were  slaves  to  be  reckoned  as  persons  or  as  chattels  ?          .     258 

Attitude  of  the  Virginia  statesmen 259 

It  was  absolutely  necessary  to  satisfy  South  Carolina  .         .     260 
v  The  three  fifths  compromise,  suggested  by  Madison,  was  a 

genuine  English  solution,  if  ever  there  .was  one     .         .     261 
*  f  here  was  neither  rhyme  nor  reason  in  it,  but  for  all  that, 

it  was  the  best  solution  attainable  at  the  time       .         .     262 

The  next  compromise  was  between  New  England  and  South 

Carolina  as  to  the  foreign  slave-trade  and  the  power  of 

the  federal  government  over  commerce     .         .         .         263 

George  Mason  calls  the  slave-trade  an  ''  infernal  traffic"    .     264 

And  the  compromise  offends  and  alarms  Virginia    .         .         265 

Belief  in  the  moribund  condition  of  slavery          .          .          .     266 

The  foundations  of  the  Constitution  were  laid  in  compromise     267 

Powers  granted  to  the  federal  government  ....     268 

Use  of  federal  troops  in  suppressing  insurrections    .          .         269 


CONTENTS. 

Various  federal  powers 270 

Provision  for  a  federal  city  under  federal  jurisdiction       .         271 
The  Federal  Congress  might  compel  the  attendance  of  mem 
bers  .        .  272 

Powers  denied  to  the  several  states 272 

Should   the   federal  government  be  allowed   to   make   its 
promissory  notes  a  legal  tender  in  payment  of  debts  ? 
powerful  speech  of  Gouverneur  Morris          .         .         .     273 
Emphatic  and  unmistakable  condemnation  of  paper  money 

by  all  the  leading  delegates 274 

The  convention  refused  to  grant  to  the  federal  government 
the  power  of  issuing  inconvertible  paper,  but  did  not 
think  an  express  prohibition  necessary ....  275 
If  they  could  have  foreseen  some  recent  judgments  of  the 
supreme  court,  they  would  doubtless  have  made  the 
prohibition  explicit  and  absolute  ....  276 

Debates  as  to  the  federal  executive 277 

Sherman's  suggestion  as  to  the  true  relation  of  the  execu 
tive  to  the  legislature 278 

There  was  to  be  a  single  chief  magistrate,  but  how  should 

he  be  chosen  ? 279 

Objections  to  an  election  by  Congress       ....         280 
Ellsworth  and  King  suggest  the  device  of  an  electoral  col 
lege,  which  is  at  first  rejected 281 

But  afterwards  adopted      .......     282 

Provisions  for  an  election  by  Congress  in  the  case  of  a  failure 

of  choice  by  the  electoral  college 283 

Provisions  for  counting  the  electoral  votes        .         .         .         284 
It  was  not  intended  to  leave  anything  to  be  decided  by  the 

president  of  the  Senate 285 

The  convention  foresaw  imaginary  dangers,  but  not  the  real 

ones 286 

Hamilton's  opinion  of  the  electoral  scheme          .         .         .     287 

How  it  has  actually  worked 288 

In  this  part  of  its  work  the  convention  tried  to  copy  from 

the  British  Constitution 289 

In  which  they  supposed  the  legislative  and   executive   de 
partments  to  be  distinct  and  separate   ....     290 
Here  they  were  misled  by  Montesquieu  and  Blackstone   .         291 
What  our  government  would  be  if  it  were  really  like  that 

of  Great  Britain 292-294 

In  the  British  government  the  executive  department  is  not 

separated  from  the  legislative      .....     295 


CONTENTS.  xvii 

Circumstances  which  obscured  the  true  aspect  of  the  case  a 

century  ago 296-298 

The  American  cabinet  is  analogous,  not  to  the  British  cabi 
net,  but  to  the  privy  council      .....         299 

The  federal  judiciary,  and  its  remarkable  character    .     300-301 
Provisions  for  amending  the  Constitution          .         .         .         302 
The  document  is  signed  by  all  but  three  of  the  delegates    .     303 
And  the  convention  breaks  up  ......         304 

With  a  pleasant  remark  from  Franklin         ....    305 

CHAPTER  VII. 

CROWNING  THE   WORK. 

Franklin    lays  the   Constitution  before  the  legislature  of 

Pennsylvania  .........     306 

It  is  submitted  to  Congress,  which  refers  it  to  the  legisla 
tures  of  the  thirteen  states,  to  be  ratified  or  rejected  by 

the  people  in  conventions 307 

First  American  parties,  Federalists  and  Antifederalists  308,  309 
The  contest  in  Pennsylvania  ......  310 

How  to  make  a  quorum 311 

A  war  of  pamphlets  and  newspaper  squibs  .  .  312,  313 
Ending  in  the  ratification  of  the  Constitution  by  Delaware, 

Pennsylvania,  and  New  Jersey 314 

Rejoicings  and  mutterings 315 

Georgia  and  Connecticut  ratify 316 

The  outlook  in  Massachusetts 317,  318 

The  Massachusetts  convention  meets  ....  319 
And  overhauls  the  Constitution  clause  by  clause  .  .  .  320 
On  the  subject  of  an  army  Mr.  Nason  waxes  eloquent  .  321 

The  clergymen  oppose  a  religious  test 322 

And  Rev.  Samuel  West  argues  on  the  assumption  that  all 

men  are  not  totally  depraved 323 

Feeling  of  distrust  in  the  mountain  districts  .  .  .  324 
Timely  speech  of  a  Berkshire  farmer  ....  325,  326 

Attitude  of  Samuel  Adams 326,  327 

Meeting  of  mechanics  at  the  Green  Dragon  ....     327 

Charges  of  bribery      ........         328 

Washington's  fruitful  suggestion  ......     329 

Massachusetts  ratifies,  but  proposes  amendments  .  .  330" 
The  Long  Lane  has  a  turning  and  becomes  Federal  Street  .  331 
New  Hampshire  hesitates,  but  Maryland  ratifies,  and  all 

eyes  are  turned  upon  South  Carolina     ....    332 


xviii  CONTENTS. 

Objections  of  Rawlins  Lowndes  answered  by  Cotes  worth 

Pinckney 333 

South  Carolina  ratifies  the  Constitution      ....  334 
Important  effect  upon  Virginia,  where  thoughts  of  a  south 
ern  confederacy  had  been  entertained         .         .         335,  336 
Madison  and  Marshall  prevail  in  the  Virginia  convention, 

and  it  ratifies  the  Constitution 337 

New  Hampshire  had  ratified  four  days  before      .        .        .  338 

Rejoicings  at  Philadelphia ;  riots  at  Providence  and  Albany  339 

The  struggle  in  New  York 340 

Origin  of  the  "  Federalist " 341-343 

Hamilton  wins  the  victory,  and  New  York  ratifies         .         .  344 
All  serious  anxiety  is  now  at  an  end ;  the  laggard  states, 

North  Carolina  and  Rhode  Island 345 

First  presidential  election,  January  7,  1789 ;  Washington  is 

unanimously  chosen 346 

Why  Samuel  Adams  was  not  selected  for  vice-president  .  347 

Selection  of  John  Adams       .......  348 

Washington's  journey  to  New  York,  April  16-23      .        .  349 

His  inauguration •        .  350 


THE  CRITICAL   PERIOD   OF  AMERI 
CAN  HISTORY. 


CHAPTER  I. 
RESULTS   OF  YORKTOWN. 

THE  20th  of  March,  1782,  the  day  which  wit- 
nessed  the  fall  of  Lord  North's  ministry,  was  Sa 
day  of  good  omen  for  men  of  English  race  on  both 
sides  of  the  Atlantic.  Within  two  years  from  this 
time,  the  treaty  which  established  the  independence 
of  the  United  States  was  successfully  negotiated  at 
Paris ;  and  at  the  same  time,  as  part  of  the  series 
of  events  which  resulted  in  the  treaty,  there  went 
on  in  England  a  rapid  dissolution  and  reorganiza 
tion  of  parties,  which  ended  in  the  overwhelming 
defeat  of  the  king's  attempt  to  make  the  forms  of 
the  constitution  subservient  to  his  selfish  purposes, 
and  established  the  liberty  of  the  people  upon  a 
broader  and  sounder  basis  than  it  had  ever  occu 
pied  before.  Great  indignation  was  expressed  at 
the  time,  and  has  sometimes  been  echoed  by  Brit 
ish  historians,  over  the  conduct  of  those  Whigs 
who  never  lost  an  opportunity  of  expressing  their 
approval  of  the  American  revolt.  The  Duke  of 
Kichmond,  at  the  beginning  of  the  contest,  ex- 


iF  YORKTOWN. 

pressed  a  hope  that  the  Americans  might  succeed, 
Sympathy  be-  because  they  were  in  the  right.  Charles 
wwgs  andisthe  Fox  spoke'of  General  Howe's  first  vic- 
pear?yu£°Amer-  toiT  as  "  tne  terrible  news  from  Long 
ica-  Island."  Wraxall  says  that  the  cele 

brated  buff  and  blue  colours  of  the  Whig  party 
were  adopted  by  Fox  in  imitation  of  the  Conti 
nental  uniform  ;  but  his  unsupported  statement  is 
open  to  question.  It  is  certain,  however,  that  in 
the  House  of  Commons  the  Whigs  habitually  al 
luded  to  Washington's  army  as  "  our  army,"  and 
to  the  American  cause  as  "  the  cause  of  liberty  ;  " 
and  Burke,  with  characteristic  vehemence,  declared 
that  he  would  rather  be  a  prisoner  in  the  Tower 
with  Mr.  Laurens  than  enjoy  the  blessings  of  free 
dom  in  company  with  the  men  who  were  seeking 
to  enslave  America.  Still  more,  the  Whigs  did  all 
in  their  power  to  discourage  enlistments,  and  in 
various  ways  so  thwarted  and  vexed  the  govern 
ment  that  the  success  of  the  Americans  was  by 
many  people  ascribed  to  their  assistance.  A  few 
days  before  Lord  North's  resignation,  George  On- 
slow,  in  an  able  defence  of  the  prime  minister,  ex 
claimed,  "  Why  have  we  failed  so  miserably  in  this 
war  against  America,  if  not  from  the  support  and 
countenance  given  to  rebellion  in  this  very  House  ?  " 
Now  the  violence  of  party  leaders  like  Burke 
and  Fox  owed  much  of  its  strength,  no  doubt,  to 
mere  rancorousness  of  party  spirit.  But,  after 
making  due  allowance  for  this,  we  must  admit  that 
it  was  essentially  based  upon  the  intensity  of  their 
conviction  that  the  cause  of  English  liberty  was 
inseparably  bound  up  with  the  defeat  of  the  king's 


RESULTS   OF  YORKTOWN.  8 

attempt  upon  the  liberties  of  America.  Looking 
beyond  the  quarrels  of  the  moment,  they  preferred 
to  have  freedom  guaranteed,  even  at  the  cost  of 
temporary  defeat  and  partial  loss  of  empire.  Time 
has  shown  that  they  were  right  in  this,  but  the  ma 
jority  of  the  people  could  hardly  be  expected  to 
comprehend  their  attitude.  It  seemed  to  many 
that  the  great  Whig  leaders  were  forgetting  their 
true  character  as  English  statesmen,  and  there  is 
no  doubt  that  for  many  years  this  was 
the  chief  source  of  the  weakness  of  the  the  whiga  in 
Whig  party.  Sir  Gilbert  Elliot  said, 
with  truth,  that  if  the  Whigs  had  not  thus  to  a 
considerable  extent  arrayed  the  national  feeling 
against  themselves,  Lord  North's  ministry  would 
have  fallen  some  years  sooner  than  it  did.  The 
king  thoroughly  understood  the  advantage  which 
accrued  to  him  from  this  state  of  things ;  and  with 
that  shortsighted  shrewdness  of  the  mere  political 
wire-puller,  in  which  few  modern  politicians  have 
excelled  him,  he  had  from  the  outset  preferred  to 
fight  his  battle  on  constitutional  questions  in  Amer 
ica  rather  than  in  England,  in  order  that  the  na 
tional  feeling  of  Englishmen  might  be  arrayed  on 
his  side.  He  was  at  length  thoroughly  beaten  on 
his  own  ground,  and  as  the  fatal  day  approached  he 
raved  and  stormed  as  he  had  not  stormed  since  the 
spring  of  1778,  when  he  had  been  asked  to  entrust 
the  government  to  Lord  Chatham.  Like  the  child 
who  refuses  to  play  when  he  sees  the  game  going 
against  him,  George  threatened  to  abdicate  the 
throne  and  go  over  to  Hanover,  leaving  his  son  to 
get  along  with  the  Whig  statesmen.  But  presently 


4  RESULTS   OF  YORKTOWN. 

he  took  heart  again,  and  began  to  resort  to  the 
same  kind  of  political  management  which  had 
served  him  so  well  in  the  earlier  years  of  his  reign. 
Among  the  Whig  statesmen,  the  Marquis  of  Ilock- 
ingham  had  the  largest  political  following.  He 
represented  the  old  Whig  aristocracy,  his  section 
of  the  party  had  been  first  to  urge  the  recognition 
of  American  independence,  and  his  principal  fol 
lowers  were  Fox  and  Burke.  For  all  these  reasons 
he  was  especially  obnoxious  to  the  king.  On  the 
other  hand,  the  Earl  of  Shelburne  was, 

Character  of        .  .  .   . 

i-  m  a  certain  sense,  the  political  heir  of 
Lord  Chatham,  and  represented  princi 
ples  far  more  liberal  than  those  of  the  Old  Whigs. 
Shelburne  was  one  of  the  most  enlightened  states 
men  of  his  time.  He  was  an  earnest  advocate 
of  parliamentary  reform  and  of  free  trade.  He 
had  paid  especial  attention  to  political  economy, 
and  looked  with  disgust  upon  the  whole  barbaric 
system  of  discriminative  duties  and  commercial 
monopolies  which  had  been  so  largely  instrumental 
in  bringing  about  the  American  Re  volution.  But 
being  in  these  respects  in  advance  of  his  age,  Lord 
Shelburne  had  but  few  followers.  Moreover,  al 
though  a  man  of  undoubted  integrity,  quite  ex 
empt  from  sordid  or  selfish  ambition,  there  was  a 
cynical  harshness  about  him  which  made  him  gen 
erally  disliked  and  distrusted.  He  was  so  suspi 
cious  of  other  men  that  other  men  were  suspicious 
of  him ;  so  that,  in  spite  of  many  admirable  qual 
ities,  he  was  extremely  ill  adapted  for  the  work 
of  a  party  manager. 

It  was  doubtless  for  these  reasons  that  the  king, 


RESULTS   OF  YORKTOWN.  5 

when  it  became  clear  that  a  new  government  must 
be  formed,  made  up  his  mind  that  Lord  Shelburne 
would  be  the  safest  man  to  conduct  it.  In  his 
hands  the  Whig  power  would  not  be  likely  to  grow 
too  strong,  and  dissensions  would  be  sure  to  arise, 
from  which  the  king  might  hope  to  profit.  The 
first  place  in  the  treasury  was  accordingly  offered 
to  Shelburne  ;  and  when  he  refused  it,  and  the  king 
found  himself  forced  to  appeal  to  Lord  Rocking- 
ham,  the  manner  in  which  the  bitter  pill  was  taken 
was  quite  characteristic  of  George  III.  He  re 
fused  to  meet  Rockingham  in  person,  but  sent  all 
his  communications  to  him  through  Shelburne, 
who,  thus  conspicuously  singled  out  as  the  object 
of  royal  preference,  was  certain  to  incur  the  dis 
trust  of  his  fellow  ministers. 

The  structure  of  the  new  cabinet  was  unstable 
enough,  however,  to  have  satisfied  even  such  an 
enemy  as  the  king.  Beside  Rockingham  himself, 
Lord  John  Cavendish,  Charles  Fox,  Lord  Keppel, 
and  the  Duke  of  Richmond  were  all  Old  Whigs. 
To  offset  these  five  there  were  five  New  Whigs, 
the  Duke  of  Graf  ton,  Lords  Shelburne,  Camden, 
and  Ashburton,  and  General  Con  way;  while  the 
eleventh  member  was  none  other  than  the  Tory 
chancellor,  Lord  Thurlow,  who  was  kept  over  f rorn 
Lord  North's  ministry.  Burke  was  made  paymas 
ter  of  the  forces,  but  had  no  seat  in  the  cabinet. 
In  this  curiously  constructed  cabinet,  the  prime 
minister,  Lord  Rockingham,  counted  for  political  insta- 
little.  Though  a  good  party  leader,  he 
was  below  mediocrity  as  a  statesman,  mmujtry- 
and  his  health  was  failing,  so  that  he  could  not  at 


6  RESULTS   OF  YORKTOWN. 

tend  to  business.  The  master  spirits  were  the  two 
secretaries  of  state,  Fox  and  Shelburne,  and  they 
wrangled  perpetually,  while  Thin-low  carried  the 
news  of  all  their  quarrels  to  the  king,  and  in  cabi 
net  meetings  usually  voted  with  Shelburne.  The 
ministry  had  not  lasted  five  weeks  when  Fox  began 
to  predict  its  downfall.  On  the  great  question  of 
parliamentary  reform,  which  was  brought  up  in 
May  by  the  young  William  Pitt,  the  government 
was  hopelessly  divided.  Shelburne's  party  was  in 
favour  of  reform,  and  this  time  Fox  was  found  upon 
the  same  side,  as  well  as  the  Duke  of  Richmond, 
who  went  so  far  as  to  advocate  universal  suffrage. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  Whig  aristocracy,  led  by 
Rockingham,  were  as  bitterly  opposed  as  the  king 
himself  to  any  change  in  the  method  of  electing 
parliaments  ;  and,  incredible  as  it  may  seem,  even 
such  a  man  as  Burke  maintained  that  the  old  sys 
tem,  rotten  boroughs  and  all,  was  a  sacred  part  of 
the  British  Constitution,  which  none  could  handle 
rudely  without  endangering  the  country !  But  in 
this  moment  of  reaction  against  the  evil  influences 
which  had  brought  about  the  loss  of  the  American 
colonies,  there  was  a  strong  feeling  in  favour  of  re 
form,  and  Pitt's  motion  was  only  lost  by  a  minority 
of  twenty  in  a  total  vote  of  three  hundred.  Half 
a  century  was  to  elapse  before  the  reformers  were 
again  to  come  so  near  to  victory. 

But  Lord  Rockingham's  weak  and  short-lived 
ministry  was  nevertheless  remarkable  for  the 
amount  of  good  work  it  did  in  spite  of  the  king's 
dogged  opposition.  It  contained  great  adminis 
trative  talent,  which  made  itself  felt  in  the  most 


RESULTS   OF  YORKTOWN.  7 

adverse  circumstances.  To  add  to  the  difficulty, 
the  ministry  came  into  office  at  the  critical  moment 
of  a  great  agitation  in  Ireland.  In  less  than  three 
months,  not  only  was  the  trouble  successfully  re 
moved,  but  the  important  bills  for  disfranchising 
revenue  officers  and  excluding  contractors  from 
the  House  of  Commons  were  carried,  and  a  tre 
mendous  blow  was  thus  struck  at  the  corrupt  in 
fluence  of  the  crown  upon  elections.  Burke's  great 
scheme  of  economical  reform  was  also  put  into  op 
eration,  cutting  down  the  pension  list  and  dimin 
ishing  the  secret  service  fund,  and  thus  destroying 
many  sources  of  corruption.  At  no  time,  perhaps, 
since  the  expulsion  of  the  Stuarts,  had  so  much 
been  done  toward  purifying  English  political  life 
as  during  the  spring  of  1782.  But  during  the  pro 
gress  of  these  important  measures,  the  jealousies 
and  bickerings  in  the  cabinet  became  more  and 
more  painfully  apparent,  and  as  the  question  of 
peace  with  America  came  into  the  foreground,  these 
difficulties  hastened  to  a  crisis. 

From  the  policy  which  George  III.  pursued  with 
regard  to  Lord  Shelburne  at  this  time,  one  would 
suppose  that  in  his  secret  heart  the  king  wished, 
by  foul  means  since  all  others  had  failed,  to  defeat 
the  negotiations  for  peace  and  to  prolong  the  war. 
Seldom  has  there  been   a  more  oddly   obstacles  in 
complicated  situation.    Peace  was  to  be  ^at^of  °f  * 
made  with  America,  France,  Spain,  and  peace* 
Holland.     Of  these  powers,  America  and  France 
were  leagued  together  by  one  treaty  of  alliance, 
and  France  and  Spain  by  another,  and  these  trea 
ties  in  some  respects  conflicted  with  one  another  in 


8  RESULTS   OF  YORKTOWN. 

the  duties  which  they  entailed  upon  the  combat 
ants.  Spain,  though  at  war  with  England  for  pur 
poses  of  her  own,  was  bitterly  hostile  to  the  United 
States ;  and  France,  thus  leagued  with  two  allies 
which  pulled  in  opposite  directions,  felt  bound  to 
satisfy  both,  while  pursuing  her  own  ends  against 
England.  To  deal  with  such  a  chaotic  state  of 
things,  an  orderly  and  harmonious  government  in 
England  should  have  seemed  indispensably  neces 
sary.  Yet  on  the  part  of  England  the  negotiation 
of  a  treaty  of  peace  was  to  be  the  work  of  two 
secretaries  of  state  who  were  both  politically  and 
personally  hostile  to  each  other.  Fox,  as  secretary 
of  state  for  foreign  affairs,  had  to  superintend  the 
negotiations  with  France,  Spain,  and  Holland. 
Shelburne  was  secretary  of  state  for  home  and 
colonial  affairs ;  and  as  the  United  States  were 
still  officially  regarded  as  colonies,  the  American 
negotiations  belonged  to  his  department.  With 
such  a  complication  of  conflicting  interests,  George 
III.  might  well  hope  that  no  treaty  could  be  made. 
The  views  of  Fox  and  Shelburne  as  to  the  best 
method  of  conceding  American  independence  were 
very  different.  Fox  understood  that  France  was 
really  in  need  of  peace,  and  he  believed  that  she 
would  not  make  further  demands  upon  England  if 
American  independence  should  once  be  recognized. 
Accordingly,  Fox  would  have  made  this  concession 
at  once  as  a  preliminary  to  the  negotiation.  On 
the  other  hand,  Shelburne  felt  sure  that  France 
would  insist  upon  further  concessions,  and  he 
thought  it  best  to  hold  in  reserve  the  recognition 
of  independence  as  a  consideration  to  be  bargained 


RESULTS   OF  YORKTOWN.  9 

for.  Informal  negotiations  began  between  Shel- 
burne  and  Franklin,  who  for  many  years  had  been 
warm  friends.  In  view  of  the  impending  change 
of  government,  Franklin  had  in  March  sent  a  let 
ter  to  Shelburne,  expressing  a  hope  that  peace 
might  soon  be  restored.  When  the  letter  reached 
London  the  new  ministry  had  already  been  formed, 
and  Shelburne,  with  the  consent  of  the  cabinet, 
answered  it  by  sending  over  to  Paris  an  agent,  to 
talk  with  Franklin  informally,  and  ascertain  the 
terms  upon  which  the  Americans  would  make 
peace.  The  person  chosen  for  this  purpose  was 
Richard  Oswald,  a  Scotch  merchant,  who  owned 
large  estates  in  America,  —  a  man  of  very  frank 
disposition  and  liberal  views,  and  a  friend  of  Adam 
Smith.  In  April,  Oswald  had  several  conversa 
tions  with  Franklin.  In  one  of  these  Oswaldtalks 
conversations  Franklin  suggested  that,  with  Franklin- 
in  order  to  make  a  durable  peace,  it  was  desirable 
to  remove  all  occasion  for  future  quarrel ;  that  the 
line  of  frontier  between  New  York  and  Canada 
was  inhabited  by  a  lawless  set  of  men,  who  in  time 
of  peace  would  be  likely  to  breed  trouble  between 
their  respective  governments ;  and  that  therefore 
it  would  be  well  for  England  to  cede  Canada  to 
the  United  States.  A  similar  reasoning  would 
apply  to  Nova  Scotia.  By  ceding  these  countries 
to  the  United  States  it  would  be  possible,  from 
the  sale  of  unappropriated  lands,  to  indemnify  the 
Americans  for  all  losses  of  private  property  during 
the  war,  and  also  to  make  reparation  to  the  Tories, 
whose  estates  had  been  confiscated.  By  pursuing 
such  a  policy,  England,  which  had  made  war  on 


10  RESULTS  OF  YORKTOWN. 

America  unjustly,  and  had  wantonly  done  it  great 
injuries,  would  achieve  not  merely  peace,  but  rec 
onciliation,  with  America ;  and  reconciliation,  said 
Franklin,  is  "  a  sweet  word."  No  doubt  this  was 
a  bold  tone  for  Franklin  to  take,  and  perhaps  it 
was  rather  cool  in  him  to  ask  for  Canada  and  Nova 
Scotia;  but  he  knew  that  almost  every  member 
of  the  Whig  ministry  had  publicly  expressed  the 
opinion  that  the  war  against  America  was  an  un 
just  and  wanton  war ;  and  being,  moreover,  a 
shrewd  hand  at  a  bargain,  he  began  by  setting  his 
terms  high.  Oswald  doubtless  looked  at  the  mat 
ter  very  much  from  Franklin's  point  of  view,  for 
on  the  suggestion  of  the  cession  of  Canada  he  ex 
pressed  neither  surprise  nor  reluctance.  Franklin 
had  written  on  a  sheet  of  paper  the  main  points 
of  his  conversation,  and,  at  Oswald's  request,  he 
allowed  him  to  take  the  paper  to  London  to  show 
to  Lord  Shelburne,  first  writing  upon  it  a  note  ex 
pressly  declaring  its  informal  character.  Franklin 
also  sent  a  letter  to  Shelburne,  describing  Oswald 
as  a  gentleman  with  whom  he  found  it  very  pleas 
ant  to  deal.  On  Oswald's  arrival  in  London,  Shel 
burne  did  not  show  the  notes  of  the  conversation  to 
any  of  his  colleagues,  except  Lord  Ashburton.  He 
kept  the  paper  over  one  night,  and  then  returned 
it  to  Franklin  without  any  formal  answer.  But 
the  letter  he  showed  to  the  cabinet,  and  on  the  2od 
of  April  it  was  decided  to  send  Oswald  back  to 
Paris,  to  represent  to  Franklin  that,  on  being  re 
stored  to  the  same  situation  in  which  she  was  left 
by  the  treaty  of  1763,  Great  Britain  would  be  will 
ing  to  recognize  the  independence  of  the  United 


RESULTS   OF  YORKTOWN.  11 

States.  Fox  was  authorized  to  make  a  similar 
representation  to  the  French  government,  and  the 
person  whom  he  sent  to  Paris  for  this  purpose  was 
Thomas  Grenville,  son  of  the  author  of  the  Stamp 
Act. 

As  all  British  subjects  were  prohibited  from  en 
tering  into  negotiations  with  the  revolted  colonies, 
it  was  impossible  for  Oswald  to  take  any  decisive 
step  until  an  enabling  act  should  be  carried  through 
Parliament.  But  while  waiting  for  this  he  might 
still  talk  informally  with  Franklin.  Fox  thought 
that  Oswald's  presence  in  Paris  indicated  a  desire 
on  Shelburne's  part  to  interfere  with  the  negotia 
tions  with  the  French  government ;  and  indeed, 
the  king,  out  of  his  hatred  of  Fox  and  his  inborn 
love  of  intrigue,  suggested  to  Shelburne  that  Os 
wald  "  might  be  a  useful  check  on  that  part  of  the 
negotiation  which  was  in  other  hands."  But  Shel 
burne  paid  no  heed  to  this  crooked  advice,  and 
there  is  nothing  to  show  that  he  had  the  least  de 
sire  to  intrigue  against  Fox.  If  he  had,  he  would 
certainly  have  selected  some  other  agent  than  Os 
wald,  who  was  the  most  straightforward  of  men, 
and  scarcely  close-mouthed  enough  for  a  diploma 
tist.  He  told  Oswald  to  impress  it  upon  Franklin 
that  if  America  was  to  be  independent  at  all  she 
must  be  independent  of  the  whole  world,  and  must 
not  enter  into  any  secret  arrangement  with  France 
which  might  limit  her  entire  freedom  of  action  in 
the  future.  To  the  private  memorandum  which 
desired  the  cession  of  Canada  for  three  reasons, 
his  answers  were  as  follows:  "1.  By  way  of  rep 
artition.  —  Answer.  No  reparation  can  be  heard 


12  RESULTS   OF  YORKTOWN. 

of.  2.  To  prevent  future  wars.  —  Answer.  It  is 
to  be  hoped  that  some  more  friendly  method  will 
be  found.  3.  As  a  fund  of  indemnification  to 
loyalists.  —  Answer.  No  independence  to  be  ac 
knowledged  without  their  being  taken  care  of." 
Besides,  added  Shelburne,  the  Americans  would  be 
expected  to  make  some  compensation  for  the  sur 
render  of  Charleston,  Savannah,  and  the  city  of 
New  York,  still  held  by  British  troops.  From  this 
it  appears  that  Shelburne,  as  well  as  Franklin, 
knew  how  to  begin  by  asking  more  than  he  was 
likely  to  get. 

While  Oswald  submitted  these  answers  to  Frank 
lin,  Grenville  had  his  interview  with  Vergennes, 
Grenviiie  has  and  told  him  that,  if  England  recognized 
™th  v£ew  the  independence  of  the  United  States, 
she  should  expect  France  to  restore  the 
islands  of  the  West  Indies  which  she  had  taken 
from  England.  Why  not,  since  the  indepen 
dence  of  the  United  States  was  the  sole  avowed 
object  for  which  France  had  gone  to  war  ?  Now 
this  was  on  the  8th  of  May,  and  the  news  of 
the  destruction  of  the  French  fleet  in  the  West 
Indies,  nearly  four  weeks  ago,  had  not  yet  reached 
Europe.  Flushed  with  the  victories  of  Grasse,  and 
exulting  in  the  prowess  of  the  most  formidable 
naval  force  that  France  had  ever  sent  out,  Ver 
gennes  not  only  expected  to  keep  the  islands  which 
he  had  got,  but  was  waiting  eagerly  for  the  news 
that  he  had  acquired  Jamaica  into  the  bargain.  In 
this  mood  he  returned  a  haughty  answer  to  Gren 
ville.  He  reminded  him  that  nations  often  went  to 
war  for  a  specified  object,  and  yet  seized  twice  as 


RESULTS   OF  YORKTOWN.  13 

much  if  favoured  by  fortune  ;  and,  recurring  to  the 
instance  which  rankled  most  deeply  in  the  memories 
of  Frenchmen,  he  cited  the  events  of  the  last  war. 
In  1756  England  went  to  war  with  France  over  the 
disputed  right  to  some  lands  on  the  Ohio  River 
and  the  Maine  frontier.  After  seven  years  of  fight 
ing  she  not  only  kept  these  lands,  but  all  of  Can 
ada,  Louisiana,  and  Florida,  and  ousted  the  French 
from  India  into  the  bargain.  No,  said  Vergennes, 
he  would  not  rest  content  with  the  independence 
of  America.  He  would  not  even  regard  such  an 
offer  as  a  concession  to  France  in  any  way,  or  as  a 
price  in  return  for  which  France  was  to  make  a 
treaty  favourable  to  England.  As  regards  the  rec 
ognition  of  independence,  England  must  treat  di 
rectly  with  America. 

Grenville  was  disappointed  and  chagrined  by 
this  answer,  and  the  ministry  made  up  their  minds 
that  there  would  be  no  use  in  trying  to  get  an  hon 
ourable  peace  with  France  for  the  present.  Accord 
ingly,  it  seemed  better  to  take  Vergennes  at  his 
word,  though  not  in  the  sense  in  which  he  meant 
it,  and,  by  granting  all  that  the  Americans  could 
reasonably  desire,  to  detach  them  from  the  French 
alliance  as  soon  as  possible.  On  the  18th  of  May 
there  came  the  news  of  the  stupendous  victory  of 
Rodney  over  Grasse,  and  all  England 

...  .'iii  Effects  of 

rang  with  jubilee.  Again  it  had  been  Rodney's  vio- 
shown  that  "  Britannia  rules  the  wave  ;  " 
and  it  seemed  that,  if  America  could  be  separately 
pacified,  the  House  of  Bourbon  might  be  success' 
fully  defied.  Accordingly,  on  the  23d,  five  days 
after  the  news  of  victory,  the  ministry  decided  "  to 


14  RESULTS   OF  YORKTOWN. 

propose  the  independence  of  America  in  the  first 
instance,  instead  of  making  it  the  condition  of  a 
general  treaty."  Upon  this  Fox  rather  hastily 
maintained  that  the  United  States  were  put  at  once 
into  the  position  of  an  independent  and  foreign 
power,  so  that  the  business  of  negotiating  with 
them  passed  from  Shelburne's  department  into  his 
own.  Shelburne,  on  the  other  hand,  argued  that, 
as  the  recognition  of  independence  could  not  take 
effect  until  a  treaty  of  peace  should  be  concluded, 
the  negotiation  with  America  still  belonged  to  him, 
as  secretary  for  the  colonies.  Following  Fox's  in 
structions,  Grenville  now  claimed  the  right  of  ne 
gotiating  with  Franklin  as  well  as  with  Vergennes ; 
but  as  his  written  credentials  only  authorized  hirn 
to  treat  with  France,  the  French  minister  suspected 
foul  play,  and  turned  a  cold  shoulder  to  Grenville. 
For  the  same  reason,  Grenville  found  Franklin 
very  reserved  and  indisposed  to  talk  on  the  subject 
of  the  treaty.  While  Grenville  was  thus  rebuffed 
and  irritated  he  had  a  talk  with  Oswald,  in  the 
course  of  which  he  got  from  that  simple  and  high- 
minded  gentleman  the  story  of  the  private  paper 
relating  to  the  cession  of  Canada,  which  Franklin 
had  permitted  Lord  Shelburne  to  see.  Grenville 
immediately  took  offence ;  he  made  up  his  mind 
that  something  underhanded  was  going  on,  and  that 
this  was  the  reason  for  the  coldness  of  Franklin 
and  Vergennes  ;  and  he  wrote  an  indignant  letter 
about  it  to  Fox.  From  the  wording  of  this  letter, 
Fox  got  the  impression  that  Franklin's  proposal 
was  much  more  serious  than  it  really  was.  It 
naturally  puzzled  him  and  made  him  angry,  for  the 


RESULTS   OF  YORKTOWN  15 

attitude  of  America  implied  in  the  request  for  a 
cession  of  Canada  was  far  different  from  the  atti 
tude  presumed  by  the  theory  that  the  mere  offer  of 
independence  would  be  enough  to  detach  her  from 
her  alliance  with  France.  The  plan  of  the  ministry 
seemed  imperilled.  Fox  showed  Grenville's  letter 
to  Rockingham,  Eichmond,  and  Cavendish;  and 
they  all  inferred  that  Shelburne  was  playing  a 
secret  part,  for  purposes  of  his  own.  This  was 
doubtless  unjust  to  Shelburne.  Perhaps  his  keep 
ing  the  matter  to  himself  was  simply  one  more 
illustration  of  his  want  of  confidence  in  Fox ;  or, 
perhaps  he  did  not  think  it  worth  while  to  stir  up 
the  cabinet  over  a  question  which  seemed  too  pre 
posterous  ever  to  come  to  anything.  Fox,  however, 
cried  out  against  Shelburne' s  alleged  duplicity,  and 
made  up  his  mind  at  all  events  to  get  the  American 
negotiations  transferred  to  his  own  department. 
To  this  end  he  moved  in  the  cabinet,  on  the  last 
day  of  June,  that  the  independence  of  the  United 
States  should  be  unconditionally  acknowledged,  so 
that  England  might  treat  as  with  a  foreign  power. 
The  motion  was  lost,  and  Fox  announced  that  he 
should  resign  his  office.  His  resignation  Fall  of  the 
would  probably  of  itself  have  broken  Srf^SSiy 
up  the  ministry,  but,  by  a  curious  co-  1}  1782> 
incidence,  on  the  next  day  Lord  Rockingham  died ; 
and  so  the  first  British  government  begotten  of 
Washington's  victory  at  Yorktown  came  prema 
turely  to  an  end. 

The  Old  Whigs  now  found  some  difficulty  in 
choosing  a  leader.  Burke  was  the  greatest  states 
man  in  the  party,  but  he  had  not  the  qualities  of 


16  RESULTS   OF  YORKTOWN, 

a  party  leader,  and  his  connections  were  not  suffi 
ciently  aristocratic.  Fox  was  distrusted  by  many 
people  for  his  gross  vices,  and  because  of  his  way 
wardness  in  politics.  In  the  dissipated  gambler, 
who  cast  in  his  lot  first  with  one  party  and  then 
with  the  other,  and  who  had  shamefully  used  his 
matchless  eloquence  in  defending  some  of  the  worst 
abuses  of  the  time,  there  seemed  as  yet  but  little 
promise  of  the  great  reformer  of  later  years,  the 
Charles  Fox  who  came  to  be  loved  and  idolized  by 
all  enlightened  Englishmen.  Next  to  Fox,  the 
ablest  leader  in  the  party  was  the  Duke  of  Rich 
mond,  but  his  advanced  views  on  parliamentary  re 
form  put  him  out  of  sympathy  with  the  majority  of 
the  party.  In  this  embarrassment,  the  choice  fell 
upon  the  Duke  of  Portland,  a  man  of  great  wealth 
and  small  talent,  concerning  whom  Horace  Wai- 
pole  observed,  "  It  is  very  entertaining  that  two  or 
three  great  families  should  persuade  themselves 
that  they  hav^e  a  hereditary  and  exclusive  right  of 
giving  us  a  head  without  a  tongue !  "  The  choice 
was  a  weak  one,  and  played  directly  into  the  hands 
of  the  king.  When  urged  to  make  the  Duke  of 
Portland  his  prime  minister,  the  king  replied  that 
he  had  already  offered  that  position  to  Lord  Shel- 
burne.  Hereupon  Fox  and  Cavendish 
prime  minis-  resigned,  but  Richmond  remained  in 

•8V 

office,  thus  virtually  breaking  his  con 
nection  with  the  Old  Whigs.  Lord  Keppel  also 
remained.  Many  members  of  the  party  followed 
Richmond  and  went  over  to  Shelburne.  William 
Pitt,  now  twenty-three  years  old,  succeeded  Cav 
endish  as  chancellor  of  the  exchequer  ;  Thomas 


RESULTS   OF  YORKTOWN.  17 

Townshend  became  secretary  of  state  for  home  and 
colonies,  and  Lord  Grantham  became  foreign  secre 
tary.  The  closing  days  of  Parliament  were  marked 
by  altercations  which  showed  how  wide  the  breach 
had  grown  between  the  two  sections  of  the  Whig 
party.  Fox  and  Burke  believed  that  Shelburne 
was  not  only  playing  a  false  part,  but  was  really  as 
subservient  to  the  king  as  Lord  North  had  been. 
In  a  speech  ridiculous  for  its  furious  invective, 
Burke  compared  the  new  prime  minister  with  Bor 
gia  and  Catiline.  And  so  Parliament  was  ad 
journed  on  the  llth  of  July,  and  did  not  meet 
again  until  December. 

The  task  of  making  a  treaty  of  peace  was  simpli 
fied  both  by  this  change  of  ministry  and  by  the 
total  defeat  of  the  Spaniards  and  French  at  Gi 
braltar  in  September.  Six  months  before,  Eng 
land  had  seemed  worsted  in  every  quarter.  Now 
England,  though  defeated  in  America,  was  victori 
ous  as  regarded  France  and  Spain.  The  avowed 
object  for  which  France  had  entered  into  alliance 
with  the  Americans  was  to  secure  the  independence 
of  the  United  States,  and  this  point  was  now  sub 
stantially  gained.  The  chief  object  for  which 
Spain  had  entered  into  alliance  with  France  was 
to  drive  the  English  from  Gibraltar,  and  this  point 
was  now  decidedly  lost.  France  had  bound  herself 
not  to  desist  from  the  war  until  Spain  should  re 
cover  Gibraltar  ;  but  now  there  was  little  hope  of 
accomplishing  this,  except  by  some  fortunate  bar- 
gain  in  the  treaty,  and  Vergennes  tried  to  persuade 
England  to  cede  the  great  stronghold  in  exchange 
for  West  Florida,  which  Spain  had  lately  con- 


18  RESULTS   OF  YORKTOWN. 

quered,  or  for  Oran  or  Guadaloupe.  Failing  in 
this,  he  adopted  a  plan  for  satisfying  Spain  at  the 
expense  of  the  United  States  ;  and  he  did  this  the 
more  willingly  as  he  had  no  love  for  the  Ameri- 
French  policy  cans>  ^^  did  not  wish  to  see  them  be- 
APmericdai°in.  come  to°  powerf ul.  France  had  strictly 
kept  her  pledges  ;  she  had  given  us  val 
uable  and  timely  aid  in  gaining  our  independence  ; 
and  the  sympathies  of  the  French  people  were  en 
tirely  with  the  American  cause.  But  the  object  of 
the  French  government  had  been  simply  to  humil 
iate  England,  and  this  end  was  sufficiently  accom 
plished  by  depriving  her  of  her  thirteen  colonies.  <• 
The  immense  territory  extending  from  the  Alle- 
ghany  Mountains  to  the  Mississippi  River,  and 
from  the  border  of  West  Florida  to  the  Great 
Lakes,  had  passed  from  the  hands  of  France  into 
those  of  England  at  the  peace  of  1763 ;  and  by  the 
Quebec  Act  of  1774  England  had  declared  the 
southern  boundary  of  Canada  to  be  the  Ohio  River. 
At  present  the  whole  territory,  from  Lake  Supe 
rior  down  to  the  southern  boundary  of  what  is 
now  Kentucky,  belonged  to  the  state  of  Virginia, 
whose  backwoodsmen  had  conquered  it  from  Eng 
land  in  1779.  In  December,  1780,  Virginia  had 
provisionally  ceded  the  portion  north  of  the  Ohio 
to  the  United  States,  but  the  cession  was  not  yet 
completed.  The  region  which  is  now  Tennessee 
belonged  to  North  Carolina,  which  had  begun  to 
make  settlements  there  as  long  ago  as  1758.  The 
trackless  forests  included  between  Tennessee  and 
West  Florida  were  still  in  the  hands  of  wild  tribes 
of  Cherokees  and  Choctaws,  Chickasaws  and 


RESULTS   OF  YORKTOWN.  19 

Creeks.  Several  thousand  pioneers  from  North 
Carolina  and  Virginia  had  already  set-  r^  valley  Of 
tied  beyond  the  mountains,  and  the  ^ppi^Araii- 
white  population  was  rapidly  increasing.  da'8  Pr°Phecy- 
This  territory  the  French  government  was  very  un 
willing  to  leave  in  American  hands.  The  possibil 
ity  of  enormous  expansion  which  it  would  afford  to 
the  new  nation  was  distinctly  foreseen  by  sagacious 
men.  Count  Aranda,  the  representative  of  Sr»ain 
in  these  negotiations,  wrote  a  letter  to  his  king  just 
after  the  treaty  was  concluded,  in  which  he  uttered 
this  notable  prophecy  :  "  This  federal  republic  is 
born  a  pygmy.  A  day  will  come  when  it  will  be  a 
giant,  even  a  colossus,  formidable  in  these  coun 
tries.  Liberty  of  conscience,  the  facility  for  es 
tablishing  a  new  population  on  immense  lands,  as 
well  as  the  advantages  of  the  new  government, 
will  draw  thither  farmers  and  artisans  from  all  the 
nations.  In  a  few  years  we  shall  watch  with  grief 
the  tyrannical  existence  of  this  same  colossus." 
The  letter  went  on  to  predict  that  the  Americans 
would  presently  get  possession  of  Florida  and  at 
tack  Mexico.  Similar  arguments  were  doubtless 
used  by  Aranda  in  his  interviews  with  Vergennes, 
and  France,  as  well  as  Spain,  sought  to  prevent 
the  growth  of  the  dreaded  colossus.  To  this  end 
Vergennes  maintained  that  the  Americans  ought 
to  recognize  the  Quebec  Act,  and  give  up  to  Eng 
land  all  the  territory  north  of  the  Ohio  River. 
The  region  south  of  this  limit  should,  he  thought, 
be  made  an  Indian  territory,  and  placed  under  the 
protection  of  Spain  and  the  United  States.  A 
line  was  to  be  drawn  from  the  mouth  of  the  Cum« 


20  RESULTS   OF  YORKTOWN. 

berland  River,  following  that  stream  about  as  fai 
as  tlie  site  of  Nashville,  thence  running  southward 
to  the  Tennessee,  thence  curving  eastward  nearly 
to  the  Alleghanies,  and  descending  through  what 
is  now  eastern  Alabama  to  the  Florida  line.  The 
territory  to  the  east  of  this  irregular  line  was  to  be 
under  the  protection  of  the  United  States ;  the  ter« 
ritory  to  the  west  of  it  was  to  be  under  the  protec 
tion  of  Spain.  In  this  division,  the  settlers  beyond 
the  mountains  would  retain  their  connection  with 
the  United  States,  which  would  not  touch  the  Mis 
sissippi  River  at  any  point.  Vergennes  held  that 
this  was  all  the  Americans  could  reasonably  de 
mand,  and  he  agreed  with  Aranda  that  they  had 
as  yet  gained  no  foothold  upon  the  eastern  bank 
of  the  great  river,  unmindful  of  the  fact  that  at 
that  very  moment  the  fortresses  at  Cahokia  and 
Kaskaskia  were  occupied  by  American  garrisons. 

Upon  another  important  point  the  views  of  the 
French  government  were  directly  opposed  to  Amer- 
TheNew-  ican  interests.  The  right  to  catch  fish 
fiSheriS!  on  the  banks  of  Newfoundland  had  been 
shared  by  treaty  between  France  and  England ; 
and  the  New  England  fishermen,  as  subjects  of  the 
king  of  Great  Britain,  had  participated  in  this 
privilege.  The  matter  was  of  very  great  impor 
tance,  not  only  to  New  England,  but  to  the  United 
States  in  general.  Not  only  were  the  fisheries  a 
source  of  lucrative  trade  to  the  New  England  peo 
ple,  but  they  were  the  training-school  of  a  splendid 
race  of  seamen,  the  nursery  of  naval  heroes  whose 
exploits  were  by  and  by  to  astonish  the  world. 
To  deprive  the  Americans  of  their  share  in  these 


90 


Pink    ....      British. 

Green  .     .      United  States. 

Yellow      .     .     .    Spanish. 
White    .     .     .       Indian  Territory 
under  Spanish   or  American  pro 
tection,  according  as  it  lies    West 
or  East  of  the  Yellow-Green  inter- 


nauerul       secting  line. 

Scale  of  English  Miles 


100  50     0          100         200        800 


Longitude         West 


from        Greenwich 


MAP  OF   NORTH   AMERICA, 

Showing  the  Boundaries  of  the  UNITED   STATES,  CANADA,  and  the  SPANISH   POSSES 
SIONS,  according  to  the  proposals  of  the  Court  of  France  in  I  782. 


RESULTS   OF  YORKTOWN.  21 

fisheries  was  to  strike  a  serious  blow  at  the  strength 
and  resources  of  the  new  nation.  The  British  gov 
ernment  was  not  inclined  to  grant  the  privilege, 
and  on  this  point  Vergennes  took  sides  with  Eng 
land,  in  order  to  establish  a  claim  upon  her  for 
concessions  advantageous  to  France  in  some  other 
quarter.  With  these  views,  Vergennes  secretly 
aimed  at  delaying  the  negotiations  ;  for  as  long  as 
hostilities  were  kept  up,  he  might  hope  to  extort 
from  his  American  allies  a  recognition  of  the 
Spanish  claims  and  a  renouncement  of  the  fisher 
ies,  simply  by  threatening  to  send  them  no  further 
assistance  in  men  or  money.  In  order  to  retard 
the  proceedings,  he  refused  to  take  any  steps  what 
ever  until  the  independence  of  the  United  States 
should  first  be  irrevocably  acknowledged  by  Great 
Britain,  without  reference  to  the  final  settlement 
of  the  rest  of  the  treaty.  In  this  Vergennes  was 
supported  by  Franklin,  as  well  as  by  Jay,  who  had 
lately  arrived  in  Paris  to  take  part  in  the  negotia 
tions.  But  the  reasons  of  the  American  commis 
sioners  were  very  different  from  those  of  Ver 
gennes,  They  feared  that,  if  they  began  to  treat 
before  independence  was  acknowledged,  they  would 
be  unfairly  dealt  with  by  France  and  Spain,  and 
unable  to  gain  from  England  the  concessions  upon 
which  they  were  determined. 

Jay  soon  began  to  suspect  the  designs  of  the 
French  minister.  He  found  that  he  was  sending 
M.  de  Rayneval  as  a  secret  emissary  to  Lord  Shel- 
burne  under  an  assumed  name ;  he  ascertained 
that  the  right  of  the  United  States  to  the  Missis 
sippi  valley  was  to  be  denied ;  and  he  got  hold  of 


22  RESULTS   OF  YORKTOWN. 

a  dispatch  from  Marbois,  the  French  secretary  of 
legation  at  Philadelphia,  to  Vero-ennes, 

Jay  detects  the  .  .  ,    . 

schemes  of        opposing    the   American    claim    to    the 

Vergennes.  *  •*• 

Newfoundland   fisheries.      As    soon    as 
Jay  learned   these  facts,  he    sent   his  friend  Dr. 
Benjamin  Vaughan  to  Lord  Shelburne  to  put  him 
on  his  guard,  and  while  reminding  him  that  it  was 
greatly  for  the  interest  of  England  to  dissolve  the 
alliance  between  America  and  France,  he  declared 
himself  ready  to  begin  the  negotiations  without 
waiting  for  the  recognition  of  independence,  pro 
vided  that  Oswald's  commission  should  speak  of 
the  thirteen  United  States  of  America,  instead  of 
calling  them  colonies  and  naming  them  separately. 
This  decisive  step  was  taken  by  Jay  on  his  own  re 
sponsibility,  and  without  the  knowledge  of  Frank 
lin,  who  had  been  averse  to  anything  like  a  sepa 
rate  negotiation  with  England.     It  served  to  set 
the  ball  rolling  at  once.     After  meeting  the  mes 
sengers  from  Jay  and  Vergennes,  Lord  Shelburne 
at  once  perceived  the  antagonism  that  had  arisen 
between  the  allies,  and  promptly  took  advantage  of 
it.     A  new  commission  was  made  out  for  Oswald, 
in  which  the  British  government  first  described 
our  country  as  the  United  States ;  and  early  in 
October  negotiations  were  begun  and   proceeded 
rapidly.      On   the    part    of   England,   the   affair 
was    conducted  by  Oswald,  assisted   by  Strachey 
and  Fitzherbert,  who  had    succeeded    Grenville. 
In  the  course  of  the  month  John  Adams  arrived 
in   Paris,  and  a  few  weeks  later  Henry  Laurens, 
who  had  been  exchanged  for  Lord  Cornwallis  and 
released  from  the  Tower,  was  added  to  the  coin« 


RESULTS   OF  YORKTOWN.  23 

pany.  Adams  had  a  holy  horror  of  Frenchmen 
in  general,  and  of  Count  Vergennes  in  particular. 
He  shared  that  common  but  mistaken  view  of 
Frenchmen  which  regards  them  as  shallow,  frivo 
lous,  and  insincere  ;  and  he  was  indignant  at  the 
position  taken  by  Vergennes  on  the  question  of  the 
fisheries.  In  this,  John  Adams  felt  as  all  New 
Englanders  felt,  and  he  realized  the  importance  of 
the  question  from  a  national  point  t>f  view,  as  be 
came  the  man  who  in  later  years  was  to  earn  last 
ing  renown  as  one  of  the  chief  founders  of  the 
American  navy.  His  behaviour  on  reaching  Paris 
was  characteristic.  It  is  said  that  he  left  Count 
Vergennes  to  learn  of  his  arrival  through  the 
newspapers.  It  was  certainly  some  time  before 
he  called  upon  him,  and  he  took  occasion,  besides, 
to  express  his  opinions  about  republics  and  monar 
chies  in  terms  which  courtly  Frenchmen  thought 
very  rude. 

The  arrival  of  Adams  fully  decided  the  matter 
as  to  a  separate  negotiation  with  England*  He 
agreed  with  Jay  that  Vergennes  should  be^kept  as 
far  as  possible  in  the  dark  until  everything  was 
cut  and  dried,  and  Franklin  was  reluctantly 
obliged  to  yield."  The  treaty  of  alliance  between 
France  and  the  United  States  had  expressly  stip 
ulated  that  neither  power  should  ever 

l  •   i  i  c      i         Franklin  over« 

make  peace  without  the  consent  ot  the  ruled  by  jay 


other,  and  in  view  of  this  Franklin  was 
loth  to  do  anything  which  might  seem  like  aban 
doning  the  ally  whose  timely  interposition  had 
alone  enabled  Washington^to  achieve  the  crown 
ing  triumph  of  Yorktown.  In  justice  to  Ver« 


24  RESULTS   OF  YORKTOWit. 

gennes,  it  should  be  borne  in  mind  that  he  had 
kept  strict  faith  with  us  in  regard  to  every  point 
that  had  been  expressly  stipulated  ;  and  Frank 
lin,  who  felt  that  he  understood  Frenchmen  bet- 
ter  than  his  colleagues,  was  naturally  unwilling  to 
seem  behindhand  in  this  respect.  At  the  same 
time,  in  regard  to  matters  not  expressly  stipulated, 
Vergennes  was  clearly  playing  a  sharp  game 
against  us ;  and  it  is  undeniable  that,  without  de 
parting  technically  from  the  obligations  of  the  alli 
ance,  Jay  and  Adams  —  two  men  as  honourable  as 
ever  lived  —  played  a  very  sharp  defensive  game 
against  him.  The  traditional  French  subtlety  was 
no  match  for  Yankee  shrewdness.  The  treaty  with 
England  was  not  concluded  until  the  consent  of 
France  had  been  obtained,  and  thus  the  express 
stipulation  was  respected  ;  but  a  thorough  and  de 
tailed  agreement  was  reached  as  to  what  the  pur 
port  of  the  treaty  should  be,  while  our  not  too 
friendly  ally  was  kept  in  the  dark.  The  annals  of 
modern  diplomacy  have  afforded  few  stranger 
spectacles.  With  the  indispensable  aid  of  France 
we  had  just  got  the  better  of  England  in  fight,  and 
now  we  proceeded  amicably  to  divide  territory  and 
commercial  privileges  with  the  enemy,  and  to  make 
arrangements  in  which  the  ally  was  virtually  ig- 
>  nored.  It  ceases  to  be  a  paradox,  however,  when 
s''  we  remember  that  with  the  change  of  government 
in  England  some  essential  conditions  of  the  case 
were  changed.  The  England  against  which  we 
had  fought  was  the  hostile  England  of  Lord  North; 
the  England  with  which  we  were  now  dealing  was 
the  friendly  England  of  Shelburne  and  Pitt.  For 


RESULTS  OF  YORKTOWN.  25 

the  moment,  the  English  race,  on  both  sides  of  the 
Atlantic,  was  united  in  its  main  purpose  and  di 
vided  only  by  questions  of  detail,  while  the  rival 
colonizing  power,  which  sought  to  work  in  a  direc 
tion  contrary  to  the  general  interests  of  English- 
speaking  people,  was  in  great  measure  disregarded. 
As  soon  as  the  problem  was  thus  virtually  re 
duced  to  a  negotiation  between  the  American  com 
missioners  and  Lord  Shelburne's  ministry,  the  air 
was  cleared  in  a  moment.  The  principal  questions 
had  already  been  discussed  between  Franklin  and 
Oswald.  Independence  being  first  acknowledged, 
the  question  of  boundaries  came  up  for  settlement. 
England  had  little  interest  in  regaining  the  terri 
tory  between  the  Alleghanies  and  the 

-,          ....,-  .  ,  .    ,  T      The  separate 

MlSSlSSlppl,  the  fortS    in  Which  Were    al-    American  trea- 

ready  held  by  American  soldiers,  and  upcn:'i. 
she  relinquished  all  claim  upon  it.  The 
Mississippi  River  thus  became  the  dividing  line 
between  the  United  States  and  the  Spanish  posses 
sions,  and  its  navigation  was  made  free  alike  to 
British  and  American  ships.  Franklin's  sugges 
tion  of  a  cession  of  Canada  and  Nova  Scotia  was 
abandoned  without  discussion.-  It  was  agreed  that 
the  boundary  line  should  start  at  the  mouth  of  the 
river  St.  Croix,  and,  running  to  a  point  near  Lake 
Madawaska  in  the  highlands  separating  the  Atlan 
tic  watershed  from  that  of  the  St.  Lawrence, 
should  follow  these  highlands  to  the  head  of  the 
Connecticut  River,  and  then  descend  the  middle  of 
the  river  to  the  forty-fifth  parallel,  thence  running 
Westward  and  through  the  centre  of  the  water  com 
munications  of  the  Great  Lakes  to  the  Lake  of  the 


26  RESULTS   OF  YORKTOWN. 

Woods,  thence  to  the  source  of  the  Mississippi, 
which  was  supposed  to  be  west  of  this  lake.  This 
line  was  marked  in  red  ink  by  Oswald  on  one  of 
Mitchell's  maps  of  North  America,  to  serve  as  a 
memorandum  establishing  the  precise  meaning  of 
the  words  used  in  the  description.  It  ought  to 
have  been  accurately  fixed  in  its  details  by  surveys 
made  upon  the  spot ;  but  no  commissioners  were 
appointed  for  this  purpose.  The  language  relat 
ing  to  the  northeastern  portion  of  the  boundary 
contained  some  inaccuracies  which  were  revealed 
by  later  surveys,  and  the  map  used  by  Oswald  was 
lost.  Hence  a  further  question  arose  between 
Great  Britain  and  the  United  States,  which  was 
finally  settled  by  the  Ashburton  treaty  in  1842. 

The  Americans  retained  the  right  of  catching 
fish  on  the  banks  of  Newfoundland  and  in  the  Gulf 
of  St.  Lawrence,  but  lost  the  right  of  drying  their 
2.  Fisheries;  fish  on  the  Newfoundland  coast.  On 

commercial  . 

intercourse ;  the  other  hand,  no  permission  was  given 
to  British  subjects  to  fish  on  the  coasts  of  the 
United  States.  As  regarded  commercial  inter 
course,  Jay  sought  to  establish  complete  reciprocal 
freedom  between  the  two  countries,  and  a  clause 
was  proposed  to  the  effect  that  "  all  British  mer 
chants  and  merchant  ships,  on  the  one  hand,  shall 
enjoy  in  the  United  States,  and  in  all  places  belong 
ing  to  them,  the  same  protection  and  commercial 
privileges,  and  be  liable  only^to  the  same  charges 
and  duties  as  their  own  merchants  and  merchant 
ships ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  the  merchants  and 
merchant  ships  of  the  United  States  shall  enjoy  in 
all  places  belonging  to  his  Britannic  Majesty  the 


RESULTS   OF  YORKTOWN.  27 

same  protection  and  commercial  privileges,  and  be 
liable  only  to  the  same  charges  and  duties  as  Brit 
ish  merchants  and  merchant  ships,  saving  always 
to  the  chartered  trading  companies  of  Great  Britain 
such  exclusive  use  and  trade,  and  the  respective 
ports  and  establishments,  as  neither  the  other  sub 
jects  of  Great  Britain  nor  any  the  most  favoured 
nation  participate  in."  Unfortunately  for  both 
countries,  this  liberal  provision  was  rejected  on  the 
ground  that  the  ministry  had  no  authority  to  inter 
fere  with  the  Navigation  Act. 

Only  two  questions  were  now  left  to  be  disposed 
of,  —  the  question  of  paying  private  debts,  and 
that  of  compensating  the  American  loyalists  for 
the  loss  of  property  and  general  rough  treatment 
which  they  had  suffered.  There  were  many  old 
debts  outstanding  from  American  to  3  Private 
British  merchants.  These  had  been  for  debts; 
the  most  part  incurred  before  1775,  and  while 
many  honest  debtors,  impoverished  during  the  war, 
felt  unable  to  pay,  there  were  doubtless  many  others 
who  were  ready  to  take  advantage  of  circumstances 
and  refuse  the  payment  which  they  were  perfectly 
able  to  make.  It  was  scarcely  creditable  to  us  that 
any  such  question  should  have  arisen.  Franklin, 
indeed,  argued  that  these  debts  were  more  than 
fully  offset  by  damages  done  to  private  property 
by  British  soldiers :  as,  for  example,  in  the  wanton 
raids  on  the  coasts  of  Connecticut  and  Virginia  in 
1779,  or  in  Prevost's  buccaneering  march  against 
Charleston.  To  cite  these  atrocities,  however,  as 
a  reason  for  the  non-payment  of  debts  legitimately 
owed  to  innocent  merchants  in  London  and  Glas- 


28  RESULTS   OF  YORKTOWN. 

gow  was  to  argue  as  if  two  wrongs  could  make  a 
right.  The  strong  sense  of  John  Adams  struck  at 
once  to  the  root  of  the  matter.  He  declared  "  he 
had  no  notion  of  cheating  anybody.  The  ques 
tions  of  paying  debts  and  compensating  Tories 
were  two*"  This  terse  statement  carried  the  day, 
and  it  was  finally  decided  that  all  private  debts  on 
either  side,  whether  incurred  before  or  after  1775, 
remained  still  binding,  and  must  be  discharged  at 
their  full  value  in  sterling  money. 

The  last  question  of  all  was  the  one  most  difficult 
to  settle.  There  were  many  loyalists  in  the  United 
States  who  had  sacrificed  everything  in  the  support 
of  the  British  cause,  and  it  was  unquestionably  the 
duty  of  the  British  government  to  make  every  pos 
sible  effort  to  insure  them  against  further  injury, 
und,  if  practicable,  to  make  good  their  losses  al 
ready  incurred.  From  Virginia  and  the  New  Eng 
land  states,  where  they  were  few  in  number,  they 
had  mostly  fled,  and  their  estates  had  been  confis 
cated.  In  New  York  and  South  Carolina,  where 
they  remained  in  great  numbers,  they  were  still 
waging  a  desultory  war  with  the  patriots,  which 
far  exceeded  in  cruelty  and  bitterness  the  struggle 
between  the  regular  armies.  In  many  cases  they 
had,  at  the  solicitation  of  the  British  government, 
joined  the  invading  army,  and  been  organized  into 
companies  and  regiments.  The  regular  troops  de 
feated  at  King's  Mountain,  and  those  whom  Arnold 
took  with  him  to  Virginia,  were  nearly 
tiono™pe  all  American  loyalists.  Lord  Shelburne 
felt  that  it  would  be  wrong  to  abandon 
these  unfortunate  men  to  the  vengeance  of  their 


RESULTS   OF  YORKTOWN.  29 

fellow  countrymen,  and  he  insisted  that  the  treaty 
should  contain  an  amnesty  clause  providing  for  the 
restoration  of  the  Tories  to  their  civil  rights,  witd 
compensation  for  their  confiscated  property.  How 
ever  disagreeable  such  a  course  might  seem  to  the 
victorious  Americans,  there  were  many  precedents 
for  it  in  European  history.  It  had  indeed  come  to 
be  customary  at  the  close  of  civil  wars,  and  the 
effect  of  such  a  policy  had  invariably  been  good. 
Cromwell,  in  his  hour  of  triumph,  inflicted  no 
disabilities  upon  his  political  enemies ;  and  when 
Charles  II.  was  restored  to  the  throne  the  healing 
effect  of  the  amnesty  act  then  passed  was  so  great 
that  historians  sometimes  ask  what  in  the  world 
had  become  of  that  Puritan  party  which  a  moment 
before  had  seemed  supreme  in  the  land.  At  the 
close  of  the  war  of  the  Spanish  Succession,  the 
rebellious  people  of  Catalonia  were  indemnified  for 
their  losses,  at  the  request  of  England,  and  with  a 
similar  good  effect.  In  view  of  such  European 
precedents,  Vergennes  agreed  with  Shelburne  as 
to  the  propriety  of  securing  compensation  and  fur 
ther  immunity  for  the  Tories  in  America.  John 
Adams  insinuated  that  the  French  minister  took 
this  course  because  he  foresaw  that  the  presence 
of  the  Tories  in  the  United  States  would  keep  the 
people  perpetually  divided  into  a  French  party 
and  an  English  party ;  but  such  a  suspicion  was 
quite  uncalled  for.  There  is  no  reason  to  suppose 
that  in  this  instance  Vergennes  had  anything  at 
heart  but  the  interests  of  humanity  and  justice. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  Americans  brought  for 
ward  very  strong  reasons  why  the  Tories  should 


30  RESULTS   OF  YORKTOWN. 

not  be  indemnified  by  Congress.  First,  as  Frank 
lin  urged,  many  of  them  had,  by  their  misrepre 
sentations  to  the  British  government,  helped  to  stir 
up  the  disputes  which  led  to  the  war ;  and  as  they 
had  made  their  bed,  so  they  must  lie  in  it.  Sec 
ondly,  such  of  them  as  had  been  concerned  in  burn 
ing  and  plundering  defenceless  villages,  and  wield 
ing  the  tomahawk  in  concert  with  bloodthirsty 
Indians,  deserved  no  compassion.  It  was  rather 
for  them  to  make  compensation  for  the  misery  they 
had  wrought.  Thirdly,  the  confiscated  Tory  prop 
erty  had  passed  into  the  hands  of  purchasers  who 
had  bought  it  in  good  faith  and  could  not  now  be 
dispossessed,  and  in  many  cases  it  had  been  dis 
tributed  here  and  there  and  lost  sight  of.  An 
estimate  of  the  gross  amount  might  be  made,  and 
a  corresponding  sum  appropriated  for  indemnifica 
tion.  But,  fourthly,  the  country  was  so  impover 
ished  by  the  war  that  its  own  soldiers,  the  brave 
men  whose  heroic  exertions  had  won  the  indepen 
dence  of  the  United  States,  were  at  this  moment 
in  sore  distress  for  the  want  of  the  pay  which  Con 
gress  could  not  give  them,  but  to  which  its  honour 
was  sacredly  pledged.  The  American  government 
was  clearly  bound  to  pay  its  just  debts  to  the  friends 
who  had  suffered  so  much  in  its  behalf  before  it 
should  proceed  to  entertain  a  chimerical  scheme 
for  satisfying  its  enemies.  For,  fifthly,  any  such 
scheme  was  in  the  present  instance  clearly  chimer 
ical.  The  acts  under  which  Tory  property  had 
been  confiscated  were  acts  of  state  legislatures,  and 
Congress  had  no  jurisdiction  over  such  a  matter. 
If  restitution  was  to  be  made,  it  must  be  made  by 


RESULTS  OF  YORKTOWN.  31 

the  separate  states.  The  question  could  not  for  a 
moment  be  entertained  by  the  general  government 
or  its  agents. 

Upon  these  points  the  American  commissioners 
were  united  and  inexorable.  Various  suggestions 
were  offered  in  vain  by  the  British.  Their  troops 
still  held  the  city  of  New  York,  and  it  was  doubt 
ful  whether  the  Americans  could  hope  to  capture  it 
in  another  campaign.  It  was  urged  that  England 
might  fairly  claim  in  exchange  for  New  York  a 
round  sum  of  money  wherewith  the  Tories  might 
be  indemnified.  It  was  further  urged  that  certain 
unappropriated  lands  in  the  Mississippi  valley 
might  be  sold  for  the  same  purpose.  But  the 
Americans  would  not  hear  of  buying  one  of  their 
own  cities,  whose  independence  was  already  ac 
knowledged  by  the  first  article  of  the  treaty  which 
recognized  the  independence  of  the  United  States; 
and  as  for  the  western  lands,  they  were  wanted  as  a 
means  of  paying  our  own  war  debts  and  providing 
for  our  veteran  soldiers.  Several  times  Shelburne 
sent  word  to  Paris  that  he  would  break  off  the  ne 
gotiation  unless  the  loyalist  claims  were  in  some 
way  recognized.  But  the  Americans  were  obdurate. 
They  had  one  advantage,  and  knew  it.  Parlia 
ment  was  soon  to  meet,  and  it  was  doubtful  whether 
Lord  Shelburne  could  command  a  sufficient  ma 
jority  to  remain  long  in  office.  He  was,  accord 
ingly,  very  anxious  to  complete  the  treaty  of  peace, 
or  at  least  to  detach  America  from  the  French 
alliance,  as  soon  as  possible.  The  American  com 
missioners  were  also  eager  to  conclude  the  treaty. 
They  had  secured  very  favourable  terms,  and  were 


32  RESULTS   OF  YORKTOWN. 

loth  to  run  any  risk  of  spoiling  what  had  been 
done.  Accordingly,  they  made  a  proposal  in  the 
form  of  a  compromise,  which  nevertheless  settled 
the  point  in  their  favour.  The  matter,  they  said, 
was  beyond  the  jurisdiction  of  Congress,  but  they 
agreed  that  Congress  should  recommend  to  the 
several  states  to  desist  from  further  proceedings 
against  the  Tories,  and  to  reconsider  their  laws  on 
this  subject ;  it  should  further  recommend  that  per 
sons  with  claims  upon  confiscated  lands  might  be 
authorized  to  use  legal  means  of  recovering  them, 
and  to  this  end  might  be  allowed  to  pass  to  and  fro 
without  personal  risk  for  the  term  of  one  year. 
The  British  commissioners  accepted  this  compro 
mise,  unsatisfactory  as  it  was,  because  it  was  really 
impossible  to  obtain  anything  better  without  throw 
ing  the  whole  negotiation  overboard  The  consti 
tutional  difficulty  was  a  real  one  indeed.  As 
Adams  told  Oswald,  if  the  point  were  further  in 
sisted  upon,  Congress  would  be  obliged  to  refer  it 
to  the  several  states,  and  no  one  could  tell  how 
long  it  might  be  before  any  decisive  result  could  be 
reached  in  this  way.  Meanwhile,  the  state  of  war 
would  continue,  and  it  would  be  cheaper  for  Eng 
land  to  indemnify  the  loyalists  herself  than  to  pay 
the  war  bills  for  a  single  month.  Franklin  added 
that,  if  the  loyalists  were  to  be  indemnified,  it 
would  be  necessary  also  to  reckon  up  the  damage 
they  had  done  in  burning  houses  and  kidnapping 
slaves,  and  then  strike  a  balance  between  the  two 
accounts ;  and  he  gravely  suggested  that  a  special 
commission  might  be  appointed  for  this  purpose. 
At  the  prospect  of  endless  discussion  which  this 


RESULTS   OF  YORKTOWN.  33 

suggestion  involved,  the  British  commissioners  gave 
way  and  accepted  the  American  terms,  although 
they  were  frankly  told  that  too  much  must  not  be 
expected  from  the  recommendation  of  Congress. 
The  articles  were  signed  on  the  30th  of  November, 
six  days  before  the  meeting  of  Parliament.  Hos- 
tilities  in  America  were  to  cease  at  once,  and  upoD 
the  completion  of  the  treaty  the  British  fleets  and 
armies  were  to  be  immediately  withdrawn  from 
every  place  which  they  held  within  the  limits  of 
the  United  States.  A  supplementary  and  secret 
article  provided  that  if  England,  on  making  peace 
with  Spain,  should  recover  West  Florida,  the  north 
ern  boundary  of  that  province  should  be  a  line  run 
ning  due  east  from  the  mouth  of  the  Yazoo  River 
to  the  Chattahoochee. 

Thus  by  skilful  diplomacy  the  Americans  had 
gained  all  that  could  reasonably  be  asked,  while 
the  work  of  making  a  general  peace  was  greatly 
simplified.  It  was  declared  in  the  preamble  that 
the  articles  here  signed  were  provisional,  and  that 
the  treaty  was  not  to  take  effect  until  terms  of 
peace  should  be  agreed  on  between  England  and 
France.  Without  delay,  Franklin  laid  the  whole 
matter,  except  the  secret  article,  before  Vergennes, 
who  forthwith  accused  the  Americans  of  ingrati 
tude  and  bad  faith.  Franklin's  reply, 
that  at  the  worst  they  could  only  be  does  not  like 

i  i        •  -i  -i  •  *he  way  in 

charged  with  want  ot  diplomatic  cour-  which  it  has 
fcesy,  has  sometimes  been  condemned  as 
insincere,  but   on   inadequate   grounds.     He   had 
consented  with  reluctance  to  the  separate  negotia 
tion,  because  he  did  not  wish  to  give  France  any 


34  RESULTS   OF  YORKTOWN. 

possible  ground  for  complaint,  whether  real  or  os 
tensible.  There  does  not  seem,  however,  to  have 
been  sufficient  justification  for  so  grave  a  charge 
as  was  made  by  Vergennes.  If  the  French  nego 
tiations  had  failed  until  after  the  overthrow  of  the 
Shelburne  ministry  ;  if  Fox,  on  coming  into  power, 
had  taken  advantage  of  the  American  treaty  to 
continue  the  war  against  France ;  and  if  under 
such  circumstances  the  Americans  had  abandoned 
their  ally,  then  undoubtedly  they  would  have  be 
come  guilty  of  ingratitude  and  treachery.  There 
is  no  reason  for  supposing  that  they  would  ever 
have  done  so,  had  the  circumstances  arisen.  Their 
preamble  made  it  impossible  for  them  honourably 
to  abandon  France  until  a  full  peace  should  be 
made,  and  more  than  this  France  could  not  reason 
ably  demand.  The  Americans  had  kept  to  the  strict 
letter  of  their  contract,  as  Vergennes  had  kept  to 
the  strict  letter  of  his,  and  beyond  this  they  meted 
out  exactly  the  same  measure  of  frankness  which 
they  received.  To  say  that  our  debt  of  gratitude 
to  France  was  such  as  to  require  us  to  acquiesce  in 
her  scheme  for  enriching  our  enemy  Spain  at  our 
expense  is  simply  childish.  Franklin  was  undoubt 
edly  right.  The  commissioners  may  have  been 
guilty  of  a  breach  of  diplomatic  courtesy,  but  noth 
ing  more.  Vergennes  might  be  sarcastic  about  it 
for  the  moment,  but  the  cordial  relations  between 
France  and  America  remained  undisturbed. 

On  the  part  of  the  Americans  the  treaty  of  Paris 

A  great  dipio-  was  one  °^  ^e  mos*  brilliant  triumphs 
matic  victory.  jn  fae  whoie  history  of  modern  diplo 
macy.  Had  the  aft'air  been  managed  by  men  ol 


RESULTS   OF  YORKTOWN.  35 

ordinary  ability,  some  of  the  greatest  results  of  the 
Revolutionary  War  would  probably  have  been  lost ; 
the  new  republic  would  have  been  cooped  up  be 
tween  the  Atlantic  Ocean  and  the  Alleghany  Moun 
tains  ;  our  westward  expansion  would  have  been 
impossible  without  further  warfare  in  which  Euro 
pean  powers  would  have  been  involved  ;  and  the 
formation  of  our  Federal  Union  would  doubtless 
have  been  effectively  hindered,  if  not,  indeed, 
altogether  prevented.  To  the  grand  triumph  the 
varied  talents  of  Franklin,  Adams,  and  Jay  alike 
contributed.  To  the  latter  is  due  the  credit  of  de 
tecting  and  baffling  the  sinister  designs  of  France  ; 
but  without  the  tact  of  Franklin  this  probably 
could  not  have  been  accomplished  without  offend 
ing  France  in  such  wise  as  to  spoil  everything.  It 
is,  however,  to  the  rare  discernment  and  boldness 
of  Jay,  admirably  seconded  by  the  sturdy  Adams, 
that  the  chief  praise  is  due.  The  turning-point  of 
the  whole  affair  was  the  visit  of  Dr.  Vaughan  to 
Lord  Shelburne.  The  foundation  of  success  was 
the  separate  negotiation  with  England,  and  here 
there  had  stood  in  the  way  a  more  formidable  ob 
stacle  than  the  mere  reluctance  of  Franklin.  The 
chevalier  Luzerne  and  his  secretary  Marbois  had 
been  busy  with  Congress,  and  that  body  had  sent 
well-meant  but  silly  and  pusillanimous  instructions 
to  its  commissioners  at  Paris  to  be  guided  in  all 
things  by  the  wishes  of  the  French  court.  To  dis 
regard  such  instructions  required  all  the  lofty 
courage  for  which  Jay  and  Adams  were  noted,  and 
for  the  moment  it  brought  upon  them  something 
like  a  rebuke  from  Congress,  conveyed  in  a  letter 


36  RESULTS   OF  YORKTOWN. 

from  Robert  Livingston.  As  Adams  said,  in  his 
vehement  way,  "Congress  surrendered  their  own 
sovereignty  into  the  hands  of  a  French  minister. 
Blush  !  blush !  ye  guilty  records  !  blush  and  perish  ! 
It  j.s  glory  to  have  broken  such  infamous  orders." 
True  enough  ;  the  commissioners  knew  that  in  di 
plomacy,  as  in  warfare,  to  the  agent  at  a  distance 
from  his  principal  some  discretionary  power  must 
be  allowed.  They  assumed  great  responsibility, 
and  won  a  victory  of  incalculable  grandeur. 

The  course  of  the  Americans  produced  no  effect 
upon  the  terms  obtained  by  France,  but  it  seriously 
modified  the  case  with  Spain.  Unable  to  obtain 
Gibraltar  by  arms,  that  power  hoped  to  get  it  by 
The  Spanish  diplomacy ;  and  with  the  support  of 
France  she  seemed  disposed  to  make  the 
cession  of  the  great  fortress  an  ultimatum,  without 
which  the  war  must  go  on.  Shelburne,  on  his  part, 
was  willing  to  exchange  Gibraltar  for  an  island 
in  the  West  Indies  ;  but  it  was  difficult  to  get  the 
cabinet  to  agree  on  the  matter,  and  the  scheme  was 
violently  opposed  by  the  people,  for  the  heroic  de 
fence  of  the  stronghold  had  invested  it  with  a  halo 
of  romance  and  endeared  it  to  every  one.  Never 
theless,  so  persistent  was  Spain,  and  so  great  the 
desire  for  peace  on  the  part  of  the  ministry,  that 
they  had  resolved  to  exchange  Gibraltar  for  Guada- 
loupe,  when  the  news  arrived  of  the  treaty  with 
America.  The  ministers  now  took  a  bold  stand, 
and  refused  to  hear  another  word  about  giving  up 
Gibraltar.  Spain  scolded,  and  threatened  a  re 
newal  of  hostilities,  but  France  was  unwilling  to 
give  further  assistance,  and  the  matter  was  settled 


RESULTS   OF  YORK  TOWN.  3? 

by  England's  surrendering  East  Florida,  and  al 
lowing  the  Spaniards  to  keep  West  Florida  and 
Minorca,  which  were  already  in  their  hands. 

By  the  treaty  with  France,  the  West  India  isl- 
ands  of  Grenada,  St.  Vincent,  St.  Christopher, 
Dominica,  Nevis,  and  Montserrat  were  restored  to 
England,  which  in  turn  restored  St.  The  French 
Loicia  and  ceded  Tobago  to  France.  i 
The  French  were  allowed  to  fortify  Dunkirk,  and 
received  some  slight  concessions  in  India  and  Af 
rica  ;  they  retained  their  share  in  the  Newfound 
land  fisheries,  and  recovered  the  little  neighbour 
ing  islands  of  St.  Pierre  and  Miquelon.  For  the 
fourteen  hundred  million  francs  which  France  had 
expended  in  the  war,  she  had  the  satisfaction  of 
detaching  the  American  colonies  from  England, 
thus  inflicting  a  blow  which  it  was  confidently 
hoped  would  prove  fatal  to  the  maritime  power  of 
her  ancient  rival ;  but  beyond  this  short-lived  sat 
isfaction,  the  fallaciousness  of  which  events  were 
soon  to  show,  she  obtained  very  little.  On  the 
20th  of  January,  1783,  the  preliminaries  of  peace 
were  signed  between  England,  on  the  one  hand, 
and  France  and  Spain,  on  the  other.  A  truce  waa 
at  the  same  time  concluded  with  Holland,  which 
was  soon  followed  by  a  peace,  in  which  most  of  the 
conquests  on  either  side  were  restored. 

A  second  English  ministry  was  now  about  to 
be  wrecked  on  the  rock  of  this  group  of  treaties. 
Lord  Shelburne's  government  had  at  no  time  been 
a  strong  one.  He  had  made  many  enemies  by  his 
liberal  and  reforming  measures,  and  he  had  alien 
ated  most  of  his  colleagues  by  his  reserved  de- 


88  RESULTS   OF  YORKTOWN. 

meanour  and  seeming  want  of  confidence  in  them. 
In  December  several  of  the  ministers  resigned. 
The  strength  of  parties  in  the  House  of  Commons 
was  thus  quaintly  reckoned  by  Gibbon  :  "  Minis 
ter  140  ;  Reynard  90 ;  Boreas  120  ;  the  rest  un 
known  or  uncertain."  But  "  Reynard  "  and  "  Bo 
reas  "  were  now  about  to  join  forces  in  one  of  the 
strangest  coalitions  ever  known  in  the  history  of 
politics.  No  statesman  ever  attacked 

Coalition  of 

Northith  another  more  ferociously  than  Fox  had 
attacked  North  during  the  past  ten 
years.  He  had  showered  abuse  upon  him  ;  accused 
him  of  "  treachery  and  falsehood,"  of  "  public  per 
fidy,"  and  "  breach  of  a  solemn  specific  promise  ;  " 
and  had  even  gone  so  far  as  to  declare  to  his  face 
a  hope  that  he  would  be  called  upon  to  expiate  his 
abominable  crimes  upon  the  scaffold.  Within  a 
twelvemonth  he  had  thus  spoken  of  Lord  North 
and  his  colleagues :  "  From  the  moment  when  I 
shall  make  any  terms  with  one  of  them,  I  will  rest 
satisfied  to  be  called  the  most  infamous  of  man 
kind.  I  would  not  for  an  instant  think  of  a  coali 
tion  with  men  who,  in  every  public  and  private 
transaction  as  ministers,  have  shown  themselves 
void  of  every  principle  of  honour  and  honesty.  In 
the  hands  of  such  men  I  would  not  trust  my  honour 
even  for  a  moment."  Still  more  recently,  when  at 
a  loss  for  words  strong  enough  to  express  his  belief 
in  the  wickedness  of  Shelburne,  he  declared  that 
he  had  no  better  opinion  of  that  man  than  to  deem 
him  capable  of  forming  an  alliance  with  North. 
We  may  judge,  then,  of  the  general  amazement 
when,  in  the  middle  of  February,  it  turned  out 


RESULTS   OF  YORKTOWN.  89 

that  Fox  had  himself  done  this  very  thing.  An 
"  ill-omened  marriage,"  William  Pitt  called  it  iii 
the  House  of  Commons.  "  If  this  ill-omened  mar 
riage  is  not  already  solemnized,  I  know  a  just  and 
lawful  impediment,  and  in  the  name  of  the  public 
safety  I  here  forbid  the  banns."  Throughout  the 
country  the  indignation  was  great.  Many  people 
had  blamed  Fox  for  not  following  up  his  charges 
by  actually  bringing  articles  of  impeachment 
against  Lord  North.  That  the  two  enemies  should 
thus  suddenly  become  leagued  in  friendship  seemed 
utterly  monstrous.  It  injured  Fox  extremely  in 
the  opinion  of  the  country,  and  it  injured  North 
still  more,  for  it  seemed  like  a  betrayal  of  the  king 
on  his  part,  and  his  forgiveness  of  so  many  insults 
looked  mean-spirited.  It  does  not  appear,  how 
ever,  that  there  was  really  any  strong  personal  ani 
mosity  between  North  and  Fox.  They  were  both 
men  of  very  amiable  character,  and  almost  inca 
pable  of  cherishing  resentment.  The  language  of 
parliamentary  orators  was  habitually  violent,  and 
the  huge  quantities  of  wine  which  gentlemen  in 
those  days  used  to  drink  may  have  helped  to  make 
it  extravagant.  The  excessive  vehemence  of  po 
litical  invective  often  deprived  it  of  half  its  effect. 
One  day,  after  Fox  had  exhausted  his  vocabulary 
of  abuse  upon  Lord  George  Germaine,  Lord  North 
said  to  him,  "  You  were  in  very  high  feather  to-day, 
Charles,  and  I  am  glad  you  did  not  fall  upon  me." 
On  another  occasion,  it  is  said  that  while  Fox  was 
thundering  against  North's  unexampled  turpitude, 
the  object  of  his  furious  tirade  cosily  dropped  off 
to  sleep.  Gibbon*  who  was  the  friend  of  both 


40  RESULTS   OF  YORKTOWN. 

statesmen,  expressly  declares  that  they  bore  each 
other  no  ill  will.  But  while  thus  alike  indisposed 
to  harbour  bitter  thoughts,  there  was  one  man  for 
whom  both  Fox  and  North  felt  an  abiding  distrust 
and  dislike;  and  that  man  was  Lord  Shelburne, 
the  prime  minister. 

v  As  a  political  pupil  of  Burke,  Fox  shared  that 
statesman's  distrust  of  the  whole  school  of  Lord 
Chatham,  to  which  Shelburne  belonged.  In  many 
respects  these  statesmen  were  far  more  advanced 
than  Burke,  but  they  did  not  sufficiently  realize 
the  importance  of  checking  the  crown  by  means  of 
a  united  and  powerful  ministry.  Fox  thoroughly 
understood  that  much  of  the  mischief  of  the  past 
twenty  years,  including  the  loss  of  America,  had 
come  from  the  system  of  weak  and  divided  minis 
tries,  which  gave  the  king  such  great  opportunity 
for  wreaking  his  evil  will.  He  had  himself  been  a 
member  of  such  a  ministry,  which  had  fallen  seven 
months  ago.  When  the  king  singled  out  Shel 
burne  for  his  confidence,  Fox  naturally  concluded 
that  Shelburne  was  to  be  made  to  play  the  royal 
game,  as  North  had  been  made  to  play  it  for  so 
many  years.  This  was  very  unjust  to  Shelburne, 
but  there  is  no  doubt  that  Fox  was  perfectly  hon 
est  in  his  belief.  It  seemed  to  him  that  the  pres 
ent  state  of  things  must  be  brought  to  an  end,  at 
whatever  cost.  A  ministry  strong  enough  to  curb 
the  king  could  be  formed  only  by  a  coalescence  of 
two  out  of  the  three  existing  parties.  A  coales 
cence  of  Old  and  New  Whigs  had  been  tried  last 
spring,  and  failed.  It  only  remained  now  to  try  the 
effect  of  a  coalescence  of  Old  Whigs  and  Tories. 


RESULTS   OF  YORKTOWN.  41 

Such  was  doubtless  the  chief  motive  of  Fox  in 
this  extraordinary  move.  The  conduct  of  North 
seems  harder  to  explain,  but  it  was  probably  due 
to  a  reaction  of  feeling  on  his  part.  He  had  done 
violence  to  his  own  convictions  out  of  weak  com 
passion  for  George  III.,  and  had  carried  on  the 
American  war  for  four  years  after  he  had  been 
thoroughly  convinced  that  peace  ought  to  be  made. 
Remorse  for  this  is  said  to  have  haunted  him  to 
the  end  of  his  life.  When  in  his  old  age  he  be* 
came  blind,  he  bore  this  misfortune  with  his  cus 
tomary  lightness  of  heart ;  and  one  day,  meeting 
the  veteran  Barre*,  who  had  also  lost  his  eyesight,  he 
exclaimed,  with  his  unfailing  wit,  "  Well,  colonel, 
in  spite  of  all  our  differences,  I  suppose  there  are 
no  two  men  in  England  who  would  be  gladder  to 
see  each  other  than  you  and  I."  But  while  Lord 
North  could  jest  about  his  blindness,  the  memory 
of  his  ill-judged  subservience  to  the  king  was 
something '  that  he  could  not  laugh  away,  and 
among  his  nearest  friends  he  was  sometimes  heard 
to  reproach  himself  bitterly.  When,  therefore,  in 
1783,  he  told  Fox  that  he  fully  agreed  with  him 
in  thinking  that  the  royal  power  ought  to  be 
curbed,  he  was  doubtless  speaking  the  truth.  No 
man  had  a  better  right  to  such  an  opinion  than  he 
had  gained  through  sore  experience.  In  his  own 
ministry,  as  he  said  to  Fox,  he  took  the  system  as 
he  found  it,  and  had  not  vigour  and  resolution 
enough  to  put  an  end  to  it ;  but  he  was  now  quite 
convinced  that  in  such  a  country  as  England, 
while  the  king  should  be  treated  with  all  outward 
show  of  respect,  he  ought  on  no  account  to  be  al 
lowed  to  exercise  any  real  power. 


42  RESULTS   OF  YORKTOWN. 

Now  this  was  in  1783  the  paramount  political 
question  in  England,  just  as  much  as  the  question 
of  secession  was  paramount  in  the  United  States 
in  1861.  Other  questions  could  be  postponed ; 
the  question  of  curbing  the  king  could  not.  Upon 
this  all-important  point  North  had  come  to  agree 
with  Fox;  and  as  the  principal  motive  of  their 
coalition  may  be  thus  explained,  the  historian  is 
not  called  upon  to  lay  too  much  stress  upon  the 
lower  motives  assigned  in  profusion  by  their  polit 
ical  enemies.  This  explanation,  however,  does  not 
quite  cover  the  case.  The  mass  of  the  Tories 
would  never  follow  North  in  an  avowed  attempt 
to  curb  the  king,  but  they  agreed  with  the  follow 
ers  of  Fox,  though  not  with  Fox  himself,  in  holy 
horror  of  parliamentary  reform,  and  were  alarmed 
by  a  recent  declaration  of  Shelburne  that  the  suf 
frage  must  be  extended  so  as  to  admit  a  hundred 
new  county  members.  Thus  while  the  two  leaders 
were  urged  to  coalescence  by  one  motive,  their 
followers  were  largely  swayed  by  another,  and  this 
added  much  to  the  mystery  and  general  unintelli 
gibleness  of  the  movement.  In  taking  this  step 
Fox  made  the  mistake  which  was  characteristic  of 
the  Old  Whig  party.  He  gave  too  little  heed  to 
the  great  public  outside  the  walls  of  the  House  of 
Commons.  The  coalition,  once  made,  was  very 
strong  in  Parliament,  but  it  mystified  and  scandal 
ized  the  people,  and  this  popular  disapproval  by 
and  by  made  it  easy  for  the  king  to  overthrow  it. 

It  was  agreed  to  choose  the  treaty  as  the  occasion 
for  the  combined  attack  upon  the  Shelburne  min 
istry.  North,  as  the  minister  who  had  conducted 


RESULTS   OF  YORK  TOWN.  43 

the  unsuccessful  war,  was  bound  to  oppose  the 
treaty,  in  any  case.  It  would  not  do  for  him  to 
admit  that  better  terms  could  not  have 

Fall    of    She!- 

been  made.  1  he  treaty  was  also  very  bume's  mini*. 
unpopular  with  Fox's  party,  and  with 
the  nation  at  large.  It  was  thought  that  too  much 
territory  had  been  conceded  to  the  Americans,  and 
fault  was  found  with  the  article  on  the  fisheries. 
But  the  point  which  excited  most  indignation  was 
the  virtual  abandonment  of  the  loyalists,  for  here 
the  honour  of  England  was  felt  to  be  at  stake.  On 
this  ground  the  treaty  was  emphatically  condemned 
by  Burke,  Sheridan,  and  Wilberforce,  no  less  than 
by  North.  It  was  ably  defended  in  the  Commons 
by  Pitt,  and  in  the  Lords  by  Shelburne  himself, 
who  argued  that  he  had  but  the  alternative  of 
accepting  the  terms  as  they  stood,  or  continuing 
the  war ;  and  since  it  had  come  to  this,  he  said, 
without  spilling  a  drop  of  blood,  or  incurring  one 
fifth  of  the  expense  of  a  year's  campaign,  the  com 
fort  and  happiness  of  the  American  loyalists  could 
be  easily  secured.  By  this  he  meant  that,  should 
America  fail  to  make  good  their  losses,  it  was  far 
better  for  England  to  indemnify  them  herself  than 
to  prolong  indefinitely  a  bloody  and  ruinous  strug 
gle.  As  we  shall  hereafter  see,  this  liberal  and 
enlightened  policy  was  the  one  which  England 
really  pursued,  so  far  as  practicable,  and  her  honour 
was  completely  saved.  That  Shelburne  and  Pitt 
were  quite  right  there  can  now  be  little  doubt. 
But  argument  was  of  no  avail  against  the  resistless 
power  of  the  coalition.  On  the  17th  of  February 
Lord  John  Cavendish  moved  an  amendment  to  the 


44  RESULTS  OF  fORKTOWN. 

ministerial  address  on  the  treaty,  refusing  to  ap. 
prove  it.  On  the  21st  he  moved  a  further  amend 
ment  condemning  the  treaty.  Both  motions  were 
carried,  and  on  the  24th  Lord  Shelburne  resigned. 
He  did  not  dissolve  Parliament  and  appeal  to  the 
country,  partly  because  he  was  aware  of  his  per 
sonal  unpopularity,  and  partly  because,  in  spite  of 
the  general  disgust  at  the  coalition,  there  was  little 
doubt  that  on  the  particular  question  of  the  treaty 
the  public  opinion  agreed  with  the  majority  in  Par 
liament,  and  not  with  the  ministry.  For  this  rea 
son,  Pitt,  though  personally  popular,  saw  that  it 
was  no  time  for  him  to  take  the  first  place  in  the 
government,  and  when  the  king  proceeded  to  offer 
it  to  him  he  declined. 

For  more  than  five  weeks,  while  the  treasury 
was  nearly  empty,  and  the  question  of  peace  or  war 
still  hung  in  the  balance,  England  was  without  a 
regular  government,  while  the  angry  king  went 
hunting  for  some  one  who  would  consent  to  be  his 
prime  minister.  He  was  determined  not  to  submit 
The  Mn  's  ^°  ^6  coalition.  He  was  naturally  en- 
wrath,  raged  at  Lord  North  for  turning  against 
him.  Meeting  one  day  North's  father,  Lord  Guil- 
ford,  he  went  up  to  him,  tragically  wringing  his 
hands,  and  exclaimed  in  accents  of  woe,  "Did  I 
ever  think,  my  Lord  Guilford,  that  your  son  would 
thus  have  betrayed  me  into  the  hands  of  Mr. 
Fox  ?  "  He  appealed  in  vain  to  Lord  Gower,  and 
then  to  Lord  Temple,  to  form  a  ministry.  Lord 
Gower  suggested  that  perhaps  Thomas  Pitt,  cousin 
of  William,  might  be  willing  to  serve.  "  I  desired 
him."  said  the  king, "  to  apply  to  Mr.  Thomas  Pitt, 


RESULTS   OF  YORKTOWN.  45 

or  Mr.  Thomas  anybody."  It  was  of  no  use.  By 
the  2d  of  April  Parliament  had  become  furious  at 
the  delay,  and  George  was  obliged  to  yield.  The 
Duke  of  Portland  was  brought  in  as  nominal  prime 
minister,  with  Fox  as  foreign  secretary,  North  as 
secretary  for  home  and  colonies,  Cavendish  as 
chancellor  of  the  exchequer,  and  Keppel  as  first 
lord  of  the  admiralty.  The  only  Tory  in  the  cab 
inet,  excepting  North,  was  Lord  Stormont,  who 
became  president  of  the  council.  The  commission 
ers,  Fitzherbert  and  Oswald,  were  recalled  from 
Paris,  and  the  Duke  of  Manchester  and  David 
Hartley,  son  of  the  great  philosopher,  were  ap 
pointed  in  their  stead.  Negotiations  continued 
through  the  spring  and  summer.  Attempts  were 
made  to  change  some  of  the  articles,  especially  the 
obnoxious  article  concerning  the  loyalists,  but  all 
to  no  purpose.  Hartley's  attempt  to  negotiate 
a  mutually  advantageous  commercial  treaty  with 
America  also  came  to  nothing.  The 
definitive  treaty  which  was  finally  signed 
on  the  3d  of  September,  1783,  was  an 
exact  transcript  of  the  treaty  which 
Shelburne  had  made,  and  for  making  which  the 
present  ministers  had  succeeded  in  turning  him  out 
of  office.  No  more  emphatic  justification  of  Shel- 
burne's  conduct  of  this  business  could  possibly  have 
been  obtained. 

The  coalition  ministry  did  not  long  survive  the 
final  signing  of  the  treaty.  The  events  of  the  next 
few  months  are  curiously  instructive  as  showing 
the  quiet  and  stealthy  way  in  whichja  political 
revolution  iiiay  be  consummated  in  a  thoroughly 


46  RESULTS  OF  YORKTOWN. 

conservative  and  constitutional  country.  Early  in 
the  winter  session  of  Parliament  Fox  brought  in 
his  famous  bill  for  organizing  the  government  of 
the  great  empire  which  Clive  and  Plastings  had 
built  up  in  India.  Popular  indignation  at  the 
ministry  had  been  strengthened  by  its  adopting 
the  same  treaty  of  peace  for  the  making  of  which 
it  had  assaulted  Shelburne  ;  and  now,  on  the  pas 
sage  of  the  India  Bill  by  the  House  of  Commons, 
there  was  a  great  outcry.  Many  provisions  of  the 
bill  were  exceedingly  unpopular,  and  its  chief  object 
was  alleged  to  be  the  concentration  of  the  immense 
patronage  of  India  into  the  hands  of  the  old  Whig 
families.  With  the  popular  feeling  thus  warmly 
enlisted  against  the  ministry,  George  III.  was  now 
emboldened  to  make  war  on  it  by  violent  means ; 
and,  accordingly,  when  the  bill  came  up  in  the 
House  of  Lords,  he  caused  it  to  be  announced,  by 
Lord  Temple,  that  any  peer  who  should  vote  in  its 
favour  would  be  regarded  as  an  enemy  by  the  king. 
Four  days  later  the  House  of  Commons,  by  a  vote 
of  153  to  80,  resolved  that "  to  report  any  opinion, 
or  pretended  opinion,  of  his  majesty  upon  any  bill 
or  other  proceeding  depending  in  either  house  of 
Parliament,  with  a  view  to  influence  the  votes  of 
the  members,  is  a  high  crime  and  misdemeanour, 
derogatory  to  the  honour  of  the  crown,  a  breach  of 
the  fundamental  privileges  of  Parliament,  and  sub 
versive  of  the  constitution  of  this  country."  A 
more  explicit  or  emphatic  defiance  to  the  king 
would  have  been  hard  to  frame.  Two  days  after 
ward  the  Lords  rejected  the  India  Bill,  and  on  the 
next  day,  the  18th  of  December,  George  turned 
the  ministers  out  of  office. 


RESULTS  OF  TORKTOWN.  47 

In  this  grave  constitutional  crisis  the  king  in 
vited  William  Pitt  to  form  a  government,  and  this 
young  statesman,  who  had  consistently  opposed  the 
coalition,  now  saw  that  his  hour  was  Constitutional 
come.  He  was  more  than  any  one  else  jjjjj  ™*™K 
the  favourite  of  the  people.  Fox's  polit-  ToryofplttT 
ical  reputation  was  eclipsed,  and  North's  ^  im 
was  destroyed,  by  their  unseemly  alliance.  Peo 
ple  were  sick  of  the  whole  state  of  things  which 
had  accompanied  the  American  war.  Pitt,  who 
had  only  come  into  Parliament  in  1780,  was  free 
from  these  unpleasant  associations.  The  unblem 
ished  purity  of  his  life,  his  incorruptible  integrity, 
his  rare  disinterestedness,  and  his  transcendent 
ability  in  debate  were  known  to  every  one.  As  the 
worthy  son  of  Lord  Chatham,  whose  name  was 
associated  with  the  most  glorious  moment  of  Eng 
lish  history,  he  was  peculiarly  dear  to  the  people. 
His  position,  however,  on  taking  supreme  office  at 
the  instance  of  a  king  who  had  just  committed 
an  outrageous  breach  of  the  constitution,  was  ex 
tremely  critical,  and  only  the  most  consummate 
skill  could  have  won  from  the  chaos  such  a  victory 
as  he  was  about  to  win.  When  he  became  first 
lord  of  the  treasury  and  chancellor  of  the  ex 
chequer,  in  December,  1783,  he  had  barely  com 
pleted  his  twenty-fifth  year.  All  his  colleagues  in 
the  new  cabinet  were  peers,  so  that  he  had  to  fight 
single-handed  in  the  Commons  against  the  united 
talents  of  Burke  and  Sheridan,  Fox  and  North ; 
and  there  was  a  heavy  majority  against  him,  be 
sides.  In  view  of  this  adverse  majority,  it  was 
Pitt's  constitutional  duty  to  dissolve  Parliament 


48  RESULTS   OF  YORKTOWN. 

and  appeal  to  the  country.  But  Fox,  unwilling  to 
imperil  his  great  majority  by  a  new  election,  now 
made  the  fatal  mistake  of  opposing  a  dissolution  ; 
thus  showing  his  distrust  of  the  people  and  his 
dread  of  their  verdict.  With  consummate  tact. 
Pitt  allowed  the  debates  to  go  on  till  March,  and 
then,  when  the  popular  feeling  in  his  favour  had 
grown  into  wild  enthusiasm,  he  dissolved  Parlia 
ment.  In  the  general  election  which  followed,  160 
members  of  the  coalition  lost  their  seats,  and  Pitt 
obtained  the  greatest  majority  that  has  ever  been 
given  to  an  English  minister. 

Thus  was  completed  the  political  revolution  in 
England  which  was  set  on  foot  by  the  American 
victory  at  Yorktown.  Its  full  significance  was  only 
gradually  realized.  For  the  moment  it  might  seem 
that  it  was  the  king  who  had  triumphed.  He  had 
shattered  the  alliance  which  had  been  formed  for 
the  purpose  of  curbing  him,  and  the  result  of  the 
election  had  virtually  condoned  his  breach  of  the 
constitution.  This  apparent  victory,  however,  had 
been  won  only  by  a  direct  appeal  to  the  people, 
and  all  its  advantages  accrued  to  the 

Overthrow  of  ° 

George  in.'s    people,  and  not  to  George  III.     His  in- 

systemofper-    r      ^ 

sonai  govern-  genious  system  ot  weak  and  divided 
ministries,  with  himself  for  balance- 
wheel,  was  destroyed.  For  the  next  seventeen 
years  the  real  ruler  of  England  was  not  George 
III.,  but  William  Pitt,  who,  with  his  great  popular 
following,  wielded  such  a  power  as  no  English 
sovereign  had  possessed  since  the  days  of  Eliza 
beth.  The  political  atmosphere  was  cleared  of 
intrigue;  and  Fox,  in  the  legitimate  attitude  of 


RESULTS  OF  YORKTOWN.  49 

leader  of  the  new  opposition,  entered  upon  the 
glorious  part  of  his  career.  There  was  now  set  in 
motion  that  great  work  of  reform  which,  hindered 
for  a  while  by  the  reaction  against  the  French  revo 
lutionists,  won  its  decisive  victory  in  1832.  Down 
to  the  very  moment  at  which  American  and  Brit 
ish  history  begin  to  flow  in  distinct  and  separate 
channels,  it  is  interesting  to  observe  how  closely 
they  are  implicated  with  each  other.  The  victory 
of  the  Americans  not  only  set  on  foot  the  British 
revolution  here  described,  but  it  figured  most 
prominently  in  each  of  the  political  changes  that 
we  have  witnessed,  down  to  the  very  eve  of  the 
overthrow  of  the  coalition.  The  system  which 
George  III.  had  sought  to  fasten  upon  America, 
in  order  that  he  might  fasten  it  upon  England, 
was  shaken  off  and  shattered  by  the  good  people 
of  both  countries  at  almost  the  same  moment  of 
time. 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE   THIRTEEN   COMMONWEALTHS. 

"  THE  times  that  tried  men's  souls  are  over," 
said  Thomas  Paine  in  the  last  number  of  the 
"  Crisis,"  which  he  published  after  hearing  that  the 
negotiations  for  a  treaty  of  peace  had  been  con 
cluded.  The  preliminary  articles  had  been  signed 
at  Paris  on  the  20th  of  January,  1783.  The  news 
arrived  in  America  on  the  23d  of  March,  in  a  let 
ter  to  the  president  of  Congress  from  Lafayette, 
who  had  returned  to  France  soon  after  the  victory 
at  Yorktown.  A  few  days  later  Sir  Guy  Carleton 
received  his  orders  from  the  ministry  to  proclaim  a 
cessation  of  hostilities  by  land  and  sea.  A  similar 
proclamation  made  by  Congress  was  formally  com 
municated  to  the  army  by  Washington  on  the  19th 
of  April,  the  eighth  anniversary  of  the  first  blood 
shed  on  Lexington  green.  Since  Wayne  had 
driven  the  British  from  Georgia,  early  in  the  pre 
ceding  year,  there  had  been  no  military  operations 
between  the  regular  armies.  Guerrilla  warfare 
between  Whig  and  Tory  had  been  kept  up  in 
parts  of  South  Carolina  and  on  the  frontier  of 
New  York,  where  Thayendanegea  was  still  alert 
and  defiant ;  while  beyond  the  mountains  the  tom 
ahawk  and  scalping-knife  had  been  busy,  and 
Washington's  old  friend  and  comrade,  Colonel 


THE   THIRTEEN  COMMONWEALTHS.     51 

Crawford,  had  been  scorched  to  death  by  the  fire 
brands  of  the  red  demons  ;  but  the  armies  had  sat 
still,  awaiting  the  peace  which  every  one  felt  sure 
must  speedily  come.  After  Cornwallis's  surrender, 
Washington  marched  his  army  back  to  the  Hud 
son,  and  established  his  headquarters  at  Newburgh. 
Kocharnbeau  followed  somewhat  later,  and  in  Sep 
tember  joined  the  Americans  on  the  Hudson  ;  but 
in  December  the  French  army  marched  to  Boston, 
and  there  embarked  for  France.  After  the  formal 
cessation  of  hostilities  on  the  19th  of  April,  1783, 
Washington  granted  furloughs  to  most  of  his  sol 
diers  ;  and  these  weather-beaten  veterans  trudged 
homeward  in  all  directions,  in  little  groups  of  four 
or  five,  depending  largely  for  their  subsistence  on 
the  hospitality  of  the  farm-houses  along  the  road. 
Arrived  at  home,  their  muskets  were  hung  over 
the  chimney-piece  as  trophies  for  grandchildren  to 
be  proud  of,  the  stories  of  their  exploits  and  their 
sufferings  became  household  legends,  and  they 
turned  the  furrows  and  drove  the  cattle  to  pasture 
just  as  in  the  "  old  colony  times."  Their  furloughs 
were  equivalent  to  a  full  discharge,  for  on  the  3d 
of  September  the  definitive  treaty  was  Departureftf 
signed,  and  the  country  was  at  peace. 
On  the  3d  of  November  the  army  was  25' 
formally  disbanded,  and  on  the  25th  of  that  month 
Sir  Guy  Carleton's  army  embarked  from  New 
York.  Small  British  garrisons  still  remained  in 
the  frontier  posts  of  Ogdensburg,  Oswego,  Niag 
ara,  Erie,  Sandusky,  Detroit,  and  Mackinaw,  but 
by  the  terms  of  the  treaty  these  places  were  to  be 
promptly  surrendered  to  the  United  States.  On 


62     THE   THIRTEEN  COMMONWEALTHS. 

the  4th  of  December  a  barge  waited  at  the  South 
Ferry  in  New  York  to  carry  General  Washington 
across  the  river  to  Paulus  Hook.  He  was  going  to 
Annapolis,  where  Congress  was  in  session,  in  order 
to  resign  his  command.  At  Fraunces's  Tavern, 
near  the  ferry,  he  took  leave  of  the  officers  who  so 
long  had  shared  his  labours.  One  after  another 
they  embraced  their  beloved  commander,  while 
there  were  few  dry  eyes  in  the  company.  They 
followed  him  to  the  ferry,  and  watched  the  depart 
ing  boat  with  hearts  too  full  for  woi-ds,  and  then 
in  solemn  silence  returned  up  the  street.  At  Phil 
adelphia  he  handed  to  the  comptroller  of  the  treas 
ury  a  neatly  written  manuscript,  containing  an 
accurate  statement  of  his  expenses  in  the  public 
service  since  the  day  when  he  took  command  of 
the  army.  The  sums  which  Washington  had  thus 
spent  out  of  his  private  fortune  amounted  to 
$64,315.  For  his  personal  services  he  declined  to 
take  any  pay.  At  noon  of  the  23d,  in  the  pres 
ence  of  Congress  and  of  a  throng  of  ladies  and 
Washington  gentlemen  at  Annapolis,  the  great  gen- 
coSmand?  era*  £ave  UP  h*s  command,  and  requested 
as  an  "  indulgence  "  to  be  allowed  to 
retire  into  private  life.  General  Mifflin,  who  dur 
ing  the  winter  of  Valley  Forge  had  conspired  with 
Gates  to  undermine  the  confidence  of  the  people 
in  Washington,  was  now  president  of  Congress, 
and  it  was  for  him  to  make  the  reply.  "  You  re 
tire,"  said  Mifflin,  "from  the  theatre  of  action 
with  the  blessings  of  your  fellow-citizens,  but  the 
glory  of  your  virtues  will  not  terminate  with  your 
military  command;  it  will  continue  to  animate 


THE   THIRTEEN  COMMONWEALTHS.     53 

remotest  ages."  The  next  morning  Washington 
hurried  away  to  spend  Christmas  at  his  pleasant 
home  at  Mount  Vernon,  which,  save  for  a  few 
hours  in  the  autumn  of  1781,  he  had  not  set  eyes 
on  for  more  than  eight  years.  His  estate  had 
suffered  from  his  long  absence,  and  his  highest 
ambition  was  to  devote  himself  to  its  simple  in 
terests.  To  his  friends  he  offered  unpretentious 
hospitality.  "  My  manner  of  living  is  plain,"  he 
said,  "  and  I  do  not  mean  to  be  put  out  of  it.  A 
glass  of  wine  and  a  bit  of  mutton  are  always 
ready,  and  such  as  will  be  content  to  partake  of 
them  are  always  welcome.  Those  who  expect 
more  will  be  disappointed."  To  Lafayette  he 
wrote  that  he  was  now  about  to  solace  himself  with 
those  tranquil  enjoyments  of  which  the  anxious 
soldier  and  the  weary  statesman  know  but  little. 
"  I  have  not  only  retired  from  all  public  employ 
ments,  but  I  am  retiring  within  myself,  and  shall 
be  able  to  view  the  solitary  walk  and  tread  the 
paths  of  private  life  with  heartfelt  satisfaction. 
Envious  of  none,  I  am  determined  to  be  pleased 
with  all ;  and  this,  my  dear  friend,  being  the  order 
of  my  march,  I  will  move  gently  down  the  stream 
of  life  until  I  sleep  with  my  fathers." 

In  these  hopes  Washington  was  to  be  disap 
pointed.  "  All  the  world  is  touched  by  his  repub 
lican  virtues,"  wrote  Luzerne  to  Vergennes,  "  but 
it  will  be  useless  for  him  to  try  to  hide  himself  and 
live  the  life  of  a  private  man :  he  will  always  be 
the  first  citizen  of  the  United  States."  It  indeed 
required  no  prophet  to  foretell  that  the  American 
people  could  not  long  dispense  with  the  services  of 


54     THE   THIRTEEN  COMMONWEALTHS. 

this  greatest  of  citizens.  Washington  had  already 
put  himself  most  explicitly  on  record  as  the  leader 
of  the  men  who  were  urging  the  people  of  the 
United  States  toward  the  formation  of  a  more  per 
fect  union.  The  great  lesson  of  the  war  had  not 
been  lost  on  him.  Bitter  experience  of  the  evils 
attendant  upon  the  weak  government  of  the  Conti 
nental  Congress  had  impressed  upon  his  mind  the 
urgent  necessity  of  an  immediate  and  thorough 
reform.  On  the  8th  of  June,  in  view  of  the  ap 
proaching  disbandment  of  the  army,  he  had  ad 
dressed  to  the  governors  and  presidents  of  the 
several  states  a  circular  letter,  which  he  wished 
to  have  regarded  as  his  legacy  to  the  American 
people.  In  this  letter  he  insisted  upon  four  things 
as  essential  to  the  very  existence  of  the  United 
His  "legacy"  States  as  an  independent  power.  First, 
canpe^Te!""  there  must  be  an  indissoluble  union  of 
Junes,  nss.  all  the  gtates  un(]er  a  singie  federal 

government,  which  must  possess  the  power  of  en 
forcing  its  decrees ;  for  without  such  authority  it 
would  be  a  government  only  in  name.  Secondly, 
the  debts  incurred  by  Congress  for  the  purpose  of 
carrying  on  the  war  and  securing  independence 
must  be  paid  to  the  uttermost  farthing.  Thirdly, 
the  militia  system  must  be  organized  through 
out  the  thirteen  states  on  uniform  principles. 
Fourthly,  the  people  must  be  willing  to  sacrifice,  if 
need  be,  some  of  their  local  interests  to  the  com 
mon  weal;  they  must  discard  their  local  prejudices, 
and  regard  one  another  as  fellow-citizens  of  a  com 
mon  country,  with  interests  in  the  deepest  and 
truest  sense  identical. 


THE   THIRTEEN  COMMONWEALTHS.     55 

The  unparalleled  grandeur  of  Washington's  char« 
acter,  his  heroic  services,  and  his  utter  disinterest 
edness  had  given  him  such  a  hold  upon  the  people 
as  scarcely  any  other  statesman  known  to  history, 
save  perhaps  William  the  Silent,  has  ever  pos 
sessed.  The  noble  and  sensible  words  of  his  cir 
cular  letter  were  treasured  up  in  the  minds  of  all 
the  best  people  in  the  country,  and  when  the  time 
for  reforming  the  weak  and  disorderly  government 
had  come  it  was  again  to  Washington  that  men 
looked  as  their  leader  and  guide.  But  that  time 
had  not  yet  come.  Only  through  the  discipline 
of  perplexity  and  tribulation  could  the  people  be 
brought  to  realize  the  indispensable  necessity  of 
that  indissoluble  union  of  which  Washington  had 
spoken.  Thomas  Paine  was  sadly  mistaken  when, 
in  the  moment  of  exultation  over  the  peace,  he  de 
clared  that  the  trying  time  was  ended.  The  most 
trying  time  of  all  was  just  beginning.  It  is  not 
too  much  to  say  that  the  period  of  five  years  fol 
lowing  the  peace  of  1783  was  the  most  critical 
moment  in  all  the  history  of  the  American  people. 
The  dangers  from  which  we  were  saved  in  1788 
were  even  greater  than  the  dangers  from  which  we 
were  saved  in  1865.  In  the  War  of  Secession 
the  love  of  union  had  come  to  be  so  strong  that 
thousands  of  men  gave  up  their  lives  for  it  as  cheer 
fully  and  triumphantly  as  the  martyrs  of  older 
times,  who  sang  their  hymns  of  praise  Absenceofa 
even  while  their  flesh  was  withering  in 
the  relentless  flames.  In  1783  the  love 
of  union,  as  a  sentiment  for  which  men  anarchy- 
would  fight,  had  scarcely  come  into  existence 


56      THE   THIRTEEN  COMMONWEALTHS. 

among  the  people  of  these  states.  The  souls  of 
the  men  of  that  day  had  not  been  thrilled  by  the 
immortal  eloquence  of  Webster,  nor  had  they 
gained  the  historic  experience  which  gave  to  Web 
ster's  words  their  meaning  and  their  charm.  They 
had  not  gained  control  of  all  the  fairest  part  of  the 
continent,  with  domains  stretching  more  than  three 
thousand  miles  from  ocean  to  ocean,  and  so  situated 
in  geographical  configuration  and  commercial  rela 
tions  as  to  make  the  very  idea  of  disunion  absurd, 
save  for  men  in  whose  minds  fanaticism  for  the 
moment  usurped  the  place  of  sound  judgment. 
The  men  of  1783  dwelt  in  a  long,  straggling  series 
of  republics,  fringing  the  Atlantic  coast,  bordered 
on  the  north  and  south  and  west  by  two  European 
powers  whose  hostility  they  had  some  reason  to 
dread.  But  nine  years  had  elapsed  since,  in  the 
first  Continental  Congress,  they  had  begun  to  act 
consistently  and  independently  in  common,  under 
the  severe  pressure  of  a  common  fear  and  an  im 
mediate  necessity  of  action.  Even  under  such  cir 
cumstances  the  war  had  languished  and  come  nigh 
to  failure  simply  through  the  difficulty  of  insuring 
concerted  action.  Had  there  been  such  a  govern 
ment  that  the  whole  power  of  the  thirteen  states 
could  have  been  swiftly  and  vigorously  wielded  as  a 
unit,  the  British,  fighting  at  such  disadvantage  as 
they  did,  might  have  been  driven  to  their  ships  in  less 
than  a  year.  The  length  of  the  war  and  its  worst 
hardships  had  been  chiefly  due  to  want  of  organiza 
tion.  Congress  had  steadily  declined  in  power  and 
in  respectability ;  it  was  much  weaker  at  the  end 
of  the  war  than  at  the  beginning ;  and  there  was 


THE   THIRTEEN  COMMONWEALTHS.     57 

reason  to  fear  that  as  soon  as  the  common  pressure 
was  removed  the  need  for  concerted  action  would 
quite  cease  to  be  felt,  and  the  scarcely  formed 
Union  would  break  into  pieces.  There  was  the 
greater  reason  for  such  a  fear  in  that,  while  no 
strong  sentiment  had  as  yet  grown  up  in  favour  of 
union,  there  was  an  intensely  powerful  sentiment 
in  favour  of  local  self-government.  This  feeling 
was  scarcely  less  strong  as  between  states  like 
Connecticut  and  Rhode  Island,  or  Maryland  and 
Virginia,  than  it  was  between  Athens  and  Megara, 
Argos  and  Sparta,  in  the  great  days  of  Grecian 
history.  A  most  wholesome  feeling  it  was,  and  one 
which  needed  not  so  much  to  be  curbed  as  to  be 
guided  in  the  right  direction.  It  was  a  feeling 
which  was  shared  by  some  of  the  foremost  Revolu 
tionary  leaders,  such  as  Samuel  Adams  and  Rich- 
ard  Henry  Lee.  But  unless  the  most  profound 
and  delicate  statesmanship  should  be  forthcoming, 
to  take  this  sentiment  under  its  guidance,  there 
was  much  reason  to  fear  that  the  release  from  the 
common  adhesion  to  Great  Britain  would  end  in 
setting  up  thirteen  little  republics,  ripe  for  endless 
squabbling,  like  the  republics  of  ancient  Greece 
and  mediaeval  Italy,  and  ready  to  become  the  prey 
of  England  and  Spain,  even  as  Greece  became  the 
prey  of  Macedonia. 

As  such  a  lamentable  result  was  dreaded  by 
Washington,  so  by  statesmen  in  Europe  it  was  gen 
erally  expected,  and  by  our  enemies  it  was  eagerly 
hoped  for.  Josiah  Tucker,  Dean  of  Gloucester, 
was  a  far-sighted  man  in  many  things;  but  he 
said,  "  As  to  the  future  grandeur  of  America,  and 


S3     THE   THIRTEEN  COMMONWEALTHS. 

its  being  a  rising  empire  under  one  head,  whether 
republican  or  monarchical,  it  is  one  of  the  idlest 
and  most  visionary  notions  that  ever  was  con 
ceived  even  by  writers  of  romance.  The  mutual 
antipathies  and  clashing  interests  of  the  Americans, 
their  difference  of  governments,  habitudes,  and 
manners,  indicate  that  they  will  have  no  centre  of 
union  and  no  common  interest.  They  never  can 
be  united  into  one  compact  empire  under  any  spe 
cies  of  government  whatever ;  a  disunited  people 
till  the  end  of  time,  suspicious  and  distrustful  of 
each  other,  they  will  be  divided  and  subdivided  into 
little  commonwealths  or  principalities,  according 
to  natural  boundaries,  by  great  bays  of  the  sea, 
and  by  vast  rivers,  lakes,  and  ridges  of  mountains." 
Such  were  the  views  of  a  liberal-minded  philos 
opher  who  bore  us  no  ill-will.  George  III.  said 
officially  that  he  hoped  the  Americans  would  not 
suffer  from  the  evils  which  in  history  had  always 
followed  the  throwing  off  of  monarchical  govern 
ment  :  which  meant,  of  course,  that  he  hoped  they 
would  suffer  from  such  evils.  He  believed  we 
should  get  into  such  a  snarl  that  the  several  states^ 
one  after  another,  would  repent  and  beg  on  their 
knees  to  be  taken  back  into  the  British  empire* 
Frederick  of  Prussia,  though  friendly  to  the  Amer 
icans,  argued  that  the  mere  extent  of  country  from 
Maine  to  Georgia  would  suffice  either  to  break  up 
the  Union,  or  to  make  a  monarchy  necessary.  No 
republic,  he  said,  had  ever  long  existed  on  so  great 
False  historic  a  scale»  The  Roman  republic  had  been 
analogies.  transformed  into  a  despotism  mainly  by 
the  excessive  enlargement  of  its  area.  It  was  only 


THE   THIRTEEN  COMMONWEALTHS.     59 

little  states,  like  Venice,  Switzerland,  and  Holland, 
that  could  maintain  a  republican  government. 
Such  arguments  were  common  enough  a  century 
ago,  but  they  overlooked  three  essential  differences 
between  the  Roman  republic  and  the  United  States. 
The  Roman  republic  in  Csesar's  time  comprised' 
peoples  differing  widely  in  blood,  in  speech,  and 
in  degree  of  civilization  ;  it  was  perpetually  threat 
ened  on  all  its  frontiers  by  powerful  enemies ;  and 
representative  assemblies  were  unknown  to  it.  The 
only  free  government  of  which  the  Roman  knew 
anything  was  that  of  the  primary  assembly  or  town 
meeting.  On  the  other  hand,  the  people  of  the 
United  States  were  all  English  in  speech,  and 
mainly  English  in  blood.  The  differences  in  de 
gree  of  civilization  between  such  states  as  Massa 
chusetts  and  North  Carolina  were  considerable, 
but  in  comparison  with  such  differences  as  those 
between  Attika  and  Lusitania  they  might  well  be 
called  slight.  The  attacks  of  savages  on  the  fron 
tier  were  cruel  and  annoying,  but  never  since  the 
time  of  King  Philip  had  they  seemed  to  threaten 
the  existence  of  the  white  man.  A  very  small 
military  establishment  was  quite  enough  to  deal 
with  the  Indians.  And  to  crown  all,  the  American 
people  were  thoroughly  familiar  with  the  principle 
of  representation,  having  practised  it  on  a  grand 
scale  for  four  centuries  in  England,  and  for  more 
than  a  century  in  America.  The  governments  of 
the  thirteen  states  were  all  similar,  and  the  polit 
ical  ideas  of  one  were  perfectly  intelligible  to  all 
the  others.  It  was  essentially  fallacious,  therefore, 
to  liken  the  case  of  the  United  States  to  that  of 
ancient  Rome. 


60      THE   THIRTEEN   COMMONWEALTHS. 

But  there  was  another  feature  of  the  case  which 
was  quite  hidden  from  the  men  of  1783.  Just  be- 
fore  the  assembling  of  the  first  Continental  Con 
gress  James  Watt  had  completed  his  steam-engine  ; 
in  the  summer  of  1787,  while  the  Federal  Con 
vention  was  sitting  at  Philadelphia,  John  Fitch 
launched  his  first  steamboat  on  the  Delaware 
River ;  and  Stephenson's  invention  of  the  locomo- 
influence  of  tive  was  to  follow  in  less  than  half  a 

railroad  and  .  . 

telegraph         century.     Ji/ven  with  all  other  conditions 

upon  pcrpctu- 

ity  of  the         f avourable,  it  is  doubtful  if  the  Ameri- 

American  . 

Union.  can  Union  could  have  been  preserved  to 

the  present  time  without  the  railroad.  But  for  the 
military  aid  of  railroads  our  government  would 
hardly  have  succeeded  in  putting  down  the  rebel 
lion  of  the  southern  states.  In  the  debates  on  the 
Oregon  Bill  in  the  United  States  Senate  in  1843, 
the  idea  that  we  could  ever  have  an  interest  in  so 
remote  a  country  as  Oregon  was  loudly  ridiculed 
by  some  of  the  members.  It  would  take  ten 
months  —  said  George  McDuffie,  the  very  able 
senator  from  South  Carolina  —  for  representa 
tives  to  get  from  that  territory  to  the  District  of 
Columbia  and  back  again.  Yet  since  the  building 
of  railroads  to  the  Pacific  coast,  we  can  go  from 
Boston  to  the  capital  of  Oregon  in  much  less  time 
than  it  took  John  Hancock  to  make  the  journey 
from  Boston  to  Philadelphia.  Railroads  and  tele 
graphs  have  made  our  vast  country,  both  for  polit 
ical  and  for  social  purposes,  more  snug  and  com 
pact  than  little  Switzerland  was  in  the  Middle 
Ages  or  New  England  a  century  ago. 

At  the  time  of  our  Revolution  the  difficulties  of 


THE   THIRTEEN  COMMONWEALTHS.     61 

travelling  formed  an  important  social  obstacle  to 
the  union  of  the  states.  In  our  time  the  persons 
who  pass  in  a  single  day  between  New  York  and 
Boston  by  six  or  seven  distinct  lines  of  railroad 
and  steamboat  are  numbered  by  thousands.  In 
1783  two  stage-coaches  were  enough  for  all  the 
travellers,  and  nearly  all  the  freight  besides,  that 
went  between  these  two  cities,  except  such  large 
freight  as  went  by  sea  around  Cape  Cod.  The 
journey  began  at  three  o'clock  in  the  morning. 
Horses  were  changed  every  twenty  miles,  and  if 
the  roads  were  in  good  condition  some  forty  miles 
would  be  made  by  ten  o'clock  in  the  evening.  In 
bad  weather,  when  the  passengers  had  Difficulty  of 
to  get  down  and  lift  the  clumsy  wheels  £dredgyeara 
out  of  deep  ruts,  the  progress  was  much  ago' 
slower.  The  loss  of  life  from  accidents,  in  propor 
tion  to  the  number  of  travellers,  was  much  greater 
than  it  has  ever  been  on  the  railway.  Broad  riv 
ers  like  the  Connecticut  and  Housatonic  had  no 
bridges.  To  drive  across  them  in  winter,  when 
they  were  solidly  frozen  over,  was  easy ;  and  in 
pleasant  summer  weather  to  cross  in  a  row-boat 
was  not  a  dangerous  undertaking.  But  squalls  at 
some  seasons  and  floating  ice  at  others  were  things 
to  be  feared.  More  than  one  instance  is  recorded 
where  boats  were  crushed  and  passengers  drowned, 
or  saved  only  by  scrambling  upon  ice-floes.  After 
a  week  or  ten  days  of  discomfort  and  danger  the 
jolted  and  jaded  traveller  reached  New  York. 
Such  was  a  journey  in  the  most  highly  civilized 
part  of  the  United  States.  The  case  was  still 
worse  in  the  South,  and  it  was  not  so  very  much 


62      THE   THIRTEEN  COMMONWEALTHS. 

better  in  England  and  France.  In  one  respect 
the  traveller  in  the  United  States  fared  better  than 
the  traveller  in  Europe:  the  danger  from  highway 
men  was  but  slight. 

Such  being  the  difficulty  of  travelling,  people 
never  made  long  journeys  save  for  very  important 
reasons.  Except  in  the  case  of  the  soldiers,  most 
people  lived  and  died  without  ever  having  seen 
any  state  but  their  own.  And  as  the  mails  were 
irregular  and  uncertain,  and  the  rates  of  postage 
very  high,  people  heard  from  one  another  but  sel 
dom.  Commercial  dealings  between  the  different 
states  were  inconsiderable.  The  occupation  of  the 
people  was  chiefly  agriculture.  Cities  were  few 
and  small,  and  each  little  district  for  the  most 
part  supported  itself.  Under  such  circumstances 
the  different  parts  of  the  country  knew  very  lit 
tle  about  each  other,  and  local  prejudices  were  in 
tense.  It  was  not  simply  free  Massachusetts  and 
Local  jealous-  slave-holding  South  Carolina,  or  English 
Connecticut  and  Dutch  New  York,  that 
misunderstood  and  ridiculed  each  the 
other ;  but  even  between  such  neighbour 
ing  states  as  Connecticut  and  Massachusetts,  both 
of  them  thoroughly  English  and  Puritan,  and  in 
all  their  social  conditions  almost  exactly  alike,  it 
used  often  to  be  said  that  there  was  no  love  lost. 
These  unspeakably  stupid  and  contemptible  local 
antipathies  are  inherited  by  civilized  men  from 
that  far-off  time  when  the  clan  system  prevailed 
over  the  face  of  the  earth,  and  the  hand  of  every 
clan  was  raised  against  its  neighbours.  They  are 
pale  and  evanescent  survivals  from  the  universal 


THE   THIRTEEN  COMMONWEALTHS.     63 

primitive  warfare,  and  the  sooner  they  die  out 
from  human  society  the  better  for  every  one. 
They  should  be  stigmatized  and  frowned  down 
upon  every  fit  occasion,  just  as  we  frown  upon 
swearing  as  a  symbol  of  anger  and  contention. 
But  the  only  thing  which  can  finally  destroy  them 
is  the  widespread  and  unrestrained  intercourse  of 
different  groups  of  people  in  peaceful  social  and 
commercial  relations.  The  rapidity  with  which 
this  process  is  now  going  on  is  the  most  encourag 
ing  of  all  the  symptoms  of  our  modern  civilization. 
But  a  century  ago  the  progress  made  in  this  direc 
tion  had  been  relatively  small,  and  it  was  a  very 
critical  moment  for  the  American  people. 

The  thirteen  states,  as  already  observed,  had 
worked  in  concert  for  only  nine  years,  during 
which  their  cooperation  had  been  feeble  and  halt 
ing.  But  the  several  state  governments  had  been 
in  operation  since  the  first  settlement  of  the  coun 
try,  and  were  regarded  with  intense  loyalty  by  the 
people  of  the  states.  Under  the  royal  governors 
the  local  political  life  of  each  state  had  been  vig 
orous  and  often  stormy,  as  befitted  communities  of 
the  sturdy  descendants  of  English  freemen.  The 
legislative  assembly  of  each  state  had  stoutly  de 
fended  its  liberties  against  the  encroachments  of 
the  governor.  In  the  eyes  of  the  people  it  was  the 
only  power  on  earth  competent  to  lay  taxes  upon 
them,  it  was  as  supreme  in  its  own  sphere  as  the 
British  Parliament  itself,  and  in  behalf  of  this 
rooted  conviction  the  people  had  gone  to  war  and 
won  their  independence  from  England.  During 
the  war  the  people  of  all  the  states,  except  Con- 


C4     THE   THIRTEEN  COMMONWEALTHS. 

necticut  and  Rhode  Island,  had  carefully  remod 
elled  their  governments,  and  in  the  performance  of 
this  work  had  withdrawn  many  of  their  ablest 
statesmen  from  the  Continental  Congress  ;  but  ex 
cept  for  the  expulsion  of  the  royal  and 

Conservative  .  ,  i      i_    j   • 

character  of     proprietary  governors,  the  work  had  in 

the  Revolution.    r       .  J   °.  '  .  . 

no  instance  been  revolutionary  in  its 
character.  It  was  not  so  much  that  the  American 
people  gained  an  increase  of  freedom  by  their  sep 
aration  from  England,  as  that  they  kept  the  free 
dom  they  had  always  enjoyed,  that  freedom  which 
was  the  inalienable  birthright  of  Englishmen,  but 
which  George  III.  had  foolishly  sought  to  impair. 
The  American  ^Revolution  was  therefore  in  no  re 
spect,  destructive.  It  was  the  most  conservative 
revolution  known  to  history,  thoroughly  English 
in  conception  from  beginning  to  end.  It  had  no 
likeness  whatever  to  the  terrible  popular  convulsion 
which  soon  after  took  place  in  France.  The  mis 
chievous  doctrines  of  Rousseau  had  found  few 
readers  and  fewer  admirers  among  the  Americans. 
The  principles  upon  which  their  revolution  was 
conducted  were  those  of  Sidney,  Harrington,  and 
Locke.  In  remodelling  the  state  governments,  as 
in  planning  the  union  of  the  states,  the  precedents 
followed  and  the  principles  applied  were  almost 
purely  English.  We  must  now  pass  in  review  the 
principal  changes  wrought  in  the  several  states, 
and  we  shall  then  be  ready  to  consider  the  general 
structure  of  the  Confederation,  and  to  describe  the 
remarkable  series  of  events  which  led  to  the  adop 
tion  of  our  Federal  Constitution. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  at  the  time  of  the 


THE   THIRTEEN  COMMONWEALTHS.      65 

Declaration  of  Independence  there  were  three  kinds 
of  government  in  the  colonies.     Connecticut  and 

o 

Rhode  Island  had  always  been  true  republics,  with 
governors  and  legislative  assemblies  elected  by  the 
people.  Pennsylvania,  Delaware,  and  Maryland 
presented  the  appearance  of  limited  hereditary 
monarchies.  Their  assemblies  were  chosen  by  the 
people,  but  the  lords  proprietary  appointed  their 
governors,  or  in  some  instances  acted  as  governors 
themselves.  In  Maryland  the  office  of  lord  pro 
prietary  was  hereditary  in  the  Calvert  8tate'  govem. 
family ;  in  Delaware  and  Pennsylvania, 
which,  though  distinct  commonwealths 
with  separate  legislatures,  had  the  same  * 
executive  head,  it  was  hereditary  in  the  Penn  fam 
ily.  The  other  eight  colonies  were  viceroyalties, 
with  governors  appointed  by  the  king,  while  in  all 
alike  the  people  elected  the  legislatures.  Accord 
ingly  in  Connecticut  and  Rhode  Island  no  change 
was  made  necessary  by  the  Revolution,  beyond  the 
mere  omission  of  the  king's  name  from  legal  doc 
uments  ;  and  their  charters,  which  dated  from  the 
middle  of  the  seventeenth  century,  continued  to  do 
duty  as  state  constitutions  till  far  into  the  nine 
teenth.  During  the  Revolutionary  War  all  the 
other  states  framed  new  constitutions,  but  in  most 
essential  respects  they  took  the  old  colonial  char 
ters  for  their  model.  The  popular  legislative  body 
remained  unchanged  even  in  its  name.  In  North 
Carolina  its  supreme  dignity  was  vindicated  in  its 
title  of  the  House  of  Commons  ;  in  Virginia  it  was 
called  the  House  of  Burgesses ;  in  most  of  the 
states  the  House  of  Representatives.  The  mem- 


66      THE   THIRTEEN  COMMONWEALTHS. 

bers  were  chosen  each  year,  except  in  South  Caro 
lina,  where  they  served  for  two  years.  In  the 
New  England  states  they  represented  the  town 
ships,  in  other  states  the  counties.  In  all  the 
states  except  Pennsylvania  a  property  qualification 
was  required  of  them. 

In  addition  to  this  House  of  Representatives  all 
the  legislatures  except  those  of  Pennsylvania  and 
Georgia  contained  a  second  or  upper  house  known 
Origin  of  the  as  *ne  Senate.  The  origin  of  the  senate 
is  to  be  found  in  the  governor's  council 
of  colonial  times,  just  as  the  House  of  Lords  is  de 
scended  from  the  Witenagemot  or  council  of  great 
barons  summoned  by  the  Old-English  kings.  The 
Americans  had  been  used  to  having  the  acts  of 
their  popular  assemblies  reviewed  by  a  council, 
and  so  they  retained  this  revisory  body  as  an  upper 
house.  A  higher  property  qualification  was  re 
quired  than  for  membership  of  the  lower  house, 
and,  except  in  New  Hampshire,  Massachusetts, 
and  South  Carolina,  the  term  of  service  was  longer. 
In  Maryland  senators  sat  for  five  years,  in  Vir 
ginia  and  New  York  for  four  years,  elsewhere  for 
two  years.  In  some  states  they  were  chosen  by 
the  people,  in  others  by  the  lower  house.  In 
Maryland  they  were  chosen  by  a  college  of  electors, 
thus  affording  a  precedent  for  the  method  of  elect 
ing  the  chief  magistrate  of  the  union  under  the 
Federal  Constitution. 

Governors  were  unpopular  in  those  days.  There 
was  too  much  flavour  of  royalty  and  high  preroga 
tive  about  them.  Except  in  the  two  republics  of 
Rhode  Island  and  Connecticut,  American  political 


THE   THIRTEEN  COMMONWEALTHS.      67 

history  during  the  eighteenth  century  was  chiefly 
the  record  of  interminable  squabbles  between  gov 
ernors  and  legislatures,  down  to  the  moment  when 
the  detested  agents  of  royalty  were  clapped  into 
jail,  or  took  refuge  behind  the  bulwarks  of  a  Brit 
ish  seventy-four.  Accordingly  the  new  constitu 
tions  were  very  chary  of  the  powers  to  be  exercised 
by  the  governor.  In  Pennsylvania  and 

__         TT  .  T  ....  Governors 

Delaware,  in  New  Hampshire  and  Mas-  viewed  with 

suspicion. 

sachusetts,  the  governor  was  at  first  re 
placed  by  an  executive  council,  and  the  president 
of  this  council  was  first  magistrate  and  titular  ruler 
of  the  state.  His  dignity  was  imposing  enough, 
but  his  authority  was  merely  that  of  a  chairman. 
The  other  states  had  governors  chosen  by  the  leg 
islatures,  except  in  New  York  where  the  governor 
was  elected  by  the  people.  No  one  was  eligible  to 
the  office  of  governor  who  did  not  possess  a  speci 
fied  amount  of  property.  In  most  of  the  states 
the  governor  could  not  be  reflected,  he  had  no  veto 
upon  the  acts  of  the  legislature,  nor  any  power  of 
appointing  officers.  In  1780,  in  a  new  constitution 
drawn  up  by  James  Bowdoin  and  the  two  Adamses, 
Massachusetts  led  the  way  in  the  construction  of  a 
more  efficient  executive  department.  The  presi 
dent  was  replaced  by  a  governor  elected  annually 
by  the  people,  and  endowed  with  the  power  of  ap 
pointment  and  a  suspensory  veto.  The  first  gov 
ernor  elected  under  this  constitution  was  John 
Hancock.  In  1783  New  Hampshire  adopted  a 
similar  constitution.  In  1790  Pennsylvania  added 
an  upper  house  to  its  legislature,  and  vested  the 
executive  power  in  &  governor  elected  by  the  peo- 


68      THE   THIRTEEN  COMMONWEALTHS. 

pie  for  a  term  of  three  years,  and  twice  ineligible. 
He  was  intrusted  with  the  power  of  appointment 
to  offices,  with  a  suspensory  veto,  and  with  the 
royal  prerogative  of  reprieving  or  pardoning  crim 
inals.  In  1792  similar  changes  were  made  in  Del 
aware.  In  1789  Georgia  added  the  upper  house 
to  its  legislature,  and  about  the  same  time  in  sev 
eral  states  the  governor's  powers  were  enlarged. 

Thus  the  various  state  governments  were  repeti 
tions  on  a  small  scale  of  what  was  then  supposed 
to  be  the  triplex  government  of  England,  with  its 
King,  Lords,  and  Commons.  The  governor  an 
swered  to  the  king  with  his  dignity  curtailed  by 
election  for  a  short  period,  and  by  narrowly  limited 
prerogatives.  The  senate  answered  to  the  House 
of  Lords,  except  in  being  a  representative  and  not 
a  hereditary  body.  It  was  supposed  to  represent 
more  especially  that  part  of  the  community  which 
was  possessed  of  most  wealth  and  consideration  ; 
and  in  several  states  the  senators  were  apportioned 
with  some  reference  to  the  amount  of  taxes  paid 
by  different  parts  of  the  state.  The  senate  of 
New  York,  in  direct  imitation  of  the  House  of 
Lords,  was  made  a  supreme  court  of  errors.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  assembly  answered  to  the 
House  of  Commons,  save  that  its  power  was  really 
limited  by  the  senate  as  the  power  of  the  House 
of  Commons  is  not  really  limited  by  the  House  of 
Lords.  But  this  peculiarity  of  the  British  Consti 
tution  was  not  well  understood  a  century  ago  ;  and 
the  misunderstanding,  as  we  shall  hereafter  see, 
exerted  a  very  serious  influence  upon  the  form  of 
our  federal  government,  as  well  as  upon  the  consti 
tutions  of  the  several  states. 


THE   THIRTEEN  COMMONWEALTHS.      6& 

In  all  the  thirteen  states  the  common  law  of 
England  remained  in  force,  as  it  does  to  this  day 
save  where  modified  by  statute.  British  and  col 
onial  statutes  made  prior  to  the  Revolution  contin 
ued  also  in  force  unless  expressly  repealed.  The 
system  of  civil  and  criminal  courts,  the  remedies  in 
common  law  and  equity,  the  forms  of  writs,  the 
functions  of  justices  of  the  peace,  the  courts  of 
probate,  all  remained  substantially  unchanged.  In 
Pennsylvania,  Delaware,  and  New  Jersey,  the 
judges  held  office  for  a  term  of  seven  years  ;  in  all 
the  other  states  they  held  office  for  life  or  during 
good  behaviour.  In  all  the  states  save  Georgia 

they  were  appointed  either  by  the  gov- 

u     xi      i     •  i  4  T*  TUe  Judiciary 

ernor   or   by  the   legislature.     It    was 

Georgia  that  in  1812  first  set  the  pernicious  ex 
ample  of  electing  judges  for  short  terms  by  the 
people,1  —  a  practice  which  is  responsible  for  much 
of  the  degradation  that  the  courts  have  suffered  in 
many  of  our  states,  and  which  will  have  to  be  aban 
doned  before  a  proper  administration  of  justice  can 
ever  be  secured. 

In  bestowing  the  suffrage,  the  new  constitutions 
were  as  conservative  as  in  all  other  respects.  The 
general  state  of  opinion  in  America  at  that  time, 
with  regard  to  universal  suffrage,  was  far  more  ad 
vanced  than  the  general  state  of  opinion  in  Eng 
land,  but  it  was  less  advanced  than  the  opinions 
of  such  statesmen  as  Pitt  and  Shelburne  and  the 
Duke  of  Richmond.  There  was  a  truly  English 
irregularity  in  the  provisions  which  were  made  on 

1  In  recent  years  Georgia  has  been  one  of  the  first  states  to 
abandon  this  bad  practice. 


70      THE   THIRTEEN  COMMONWEALTHS. 

this  subject.  In  New  Hampshire,  Pennsylvania, 
The  limited  Delaware,  and  South  Carolina,  all  resi- 
nuffrage.  fa^  f  reemen  wno  pai^  taxes  could  vote. 

In  North  Carolina  all  such  persons  could  vote  for 
members  of  the  lower  house,  but  in  order  to  vote 
for  senators  a  freehold  of  fifty  acres  was  required. 
In  Virginia  none  could  vote  save  those  who  pos 
sessed  such  a  freehold  of  fifty  acres.  To  vote  for 
governor  or  for  senators  in  New  York,  one  must 
possess  a  freehold  of  $250,  clear  of  mortgage,  and 
to  vote  for  assemblymen  one  must  either  have  a 
freehold  of  $50,  or  pay  a  yearly  rent  of  $10.  The 
pettiness  of  these  sums  was  in  keeping  with  the 
time  when  two  daily  coaches  sufficed  for  the  traffic 
between  our  two  greatest  commercial  cities.  In 
Rhode  Island  an  unincumbered  freehold  worth 
$134  was  required  ;  but  in  Rhode  Island  and  Penn 
sylvania  the  eldest  sons  of  qualified  freemen  could 
vote  without  payment  of  taxes.  In  all  the  other 
states  the  possession  of  a  small  amount  of  property, 
either  real  or  personal,  varying  from  $33  to  $200, 
was  the  necessary  qualification  for  voting.  Thus 
slowly  and  irregularly  did  the  states  drift  toward 
universal  suffrage  ;  but  although  the  impediments 
in  the  way  of  voting  were  more  serious  than  they 
seem  to  us  in  these  days  when  the  community  is 
more  prosperous  and  money  less  scarce,  they  were 
still  not  very  great,  and  in  the  opinion  of  conserva 
tive  people  they  barely  sufficed  to  exclude  from  the 
suffrage  such  shiftless  persons  as  had  no  visible  in 
terest  in  keeping  down  the  taxes. 

At  the  time  of  the  Revolution  the  succession  to 
property  was  regulated  in  New  York  and  the  south- 


THE   THIRTEEN  COMMONWEALTHS.      71 

ern  states  by  the  English  rule  of  primogeniture. 
The  eldest  son  took  all.  In  New  Jersey,  Pennsyl 
vania,  Delaware,  and  the  four  New  England  states, 
the  eldest  son  took  a  double  share.  It 

~  .,1,11,1  i  Abolition  of 

was  (jreorgia  that  led  the  way  in  decree-  primogem- 

.          .  .  ture,  entails, 

ing  the  equal  distribution  of  intestate  and  manorial 
property,  both  real  and  personal;  and 
between  1784  and  1796  the  example  was  followed 
by  all  the  other  states.  At  the  same  time  entails 
were  either  definitely  abolished,  or  the  obstacles  to 
cutting  them  off  were  removed.  In  New  York  the 
manorial  privileges  of  the  great  patroons  were 
swept  away.  In  Maryland  the  old  manorial  system 
had  long  been  dying  a  natural  death  through  the 
encroachments  of  the  patriarchal  system  of  slavery. 
The  ownership  of  all  ungranted  lands  within  the 
limits  of  the  thirteen  states  passed  from  the  crown 
not  to  the  Confederacy,  but  to  the  several  state 
governments.  In  Pennsylvania  and  Maryland  such 
ungranted  lands  had  belonged  to  the  lords  proprie 
tary.  They  were  now  forfeited  to  the  state.  The 
Penn  family  was  indemnified  by  Pennsylvania  to 
the  amount  of  half  a  million  dollars ;  but  Mary 
land  made  no  compensation  to  the  Calverts,  inas 
much  as  their  claim  was  presented  by  an  illegiti 
mate  descendant  of  the  last  Lord  Baltimore. 

The  success  of  the  American  Revolution  made  it 
possible  for  the  different  states  to  take  measure? 
for  the  gradual  abolition  of  slavery  and  the  imme' 
diate  abolition  of  the  foreign  slave-trade.  On  this 
great  question  the  state  of  public  opinion  in  Amer* 
ica  was  more  advanced  than  in  England.  So  great 
a  thinker  as  Edmund  Burke,  who  devoted  much 


72     THE   THIRTEEN  COMMONWEALTHS. 

thought  to  the  subject,  came  to  the  conclusion  that 
slavery  was  an  incurable  evil,  and  that 

Steps  toward 

the  abolition     there  was  not  the   slightest  hope  that 

of  slavery  and  11 

the  slave-  the  trade  in  slaves  could  be  stopped. 
The  most  that  he  thought  could  be  done 
by  judicious  legislation  was  to  mitigate  the  horrors 
which  the  poor  negroes  endured  on  board  ship,  or 
to  prevent  wives  from  being  sold  away  from  their 
husbands  or  children  from  their  parents.  Such 
was  the  outlook  to  one  of  the  greatest  political 
philosophers  of  modern  times  just  eighty-two  years 
before  the  immortal  proclamation  of  President 
Lincoln  !  But  how  vast  was  the  distance  between 
Burke  and  Bossuet,  who  had  declared  about  eighty 
years  earlier  that  "  to  condemn  slavery  was  to  con 
demn  the  Holy  Ghost !  "  It  was  equally  vast  be 
tween  Burke  and  his  contemporary  Thurlow,  who  in 
1799  poured  out  the  vials  of  his  wrath  upon  "  the 
altogether  miserable  and  contemptible  "  proposal 
to  abolish  the  slave-trade.  George  III.  agreed 
with  his  chancellor,  and  resisted  the  movement  for 
abolition  with  all  the  obstinacy  of  which  his  hard 
and  narrow  nature  was  capable.  In  1769  the  Vir 
ginia  legislature  had  enacted  that  the  further  im 
portation  of  negroes,  to  be  sold  into  slavery,  should 
be  prohibited.  But  George  III.  commanded  the 
governor  to  veto  this  act,  and  it  was  vetoed.  In 
Jefferson's  first  draft  of  the  Declaration  of  Inde 
pendence,  this  action  of  the  king  was  made  the  oc 
casion  of  a  fierce  denunciation  of -slavery,  but  in 
deference  to  the  prejudices  of  South  Carolina  and 
Georgia  the  clause  was  struck  out  by  Congress. 
When  George  III.  and  his  vetoes  had  been  elimi* 


THE   THIRTEEN  COMMONWEALTHS.      73 

nated  from  the  case,  it  became  possible  for  the  states 
to  legislate  freely  on  the  subject.  In  1776  negro 
slaves  were  held  in  all  the  thirteen  states,  but  in 
all  except  South  Carolina  and  Georgia  there  was  a 
strong  sentiment  in  favour  of  emancipation.  In 
North  Carolina,  which  contained  a  large  Quaker 
population,  and  in  which  estates  were  small  and 
were  often  cultivated  by  free  labour,  the  pro-slavery 
feeling  was  never  so  strong  as  in  the  southernmost 
states.  In  Virginia  all  the  foremost  statesmen  — 
Washington,  Jefferson,  Lee,  Randolph,  Henry, 
Madison,  and  Mason — were  opposed  to  the  continu 
ance  of  slavery  ;  and  their  opinions  were  shared  by 
many  of  the  largest  planters.  For  tobacco-culture 
slavery  did  not  seem  so  indispensable  as  for  the 
raising  of  rice  and  indigo  ;  and  in  Virginia  the 
negroes,  half-civilized  by  kindly  treatment,  were 
not  regarded  with  horror  by  their  masters,  like  the 
ill-treated  and  ferocious  blacks  of  South  Carolina 
and  Georgia.  After  1808  the  policy  and  the  sen 
timents  of  Virginia  underwent  a  marked  change. 
The  invention  of  the  cotton-gin,  taken  in  connec 
tion  with  the  sudden  and  prodigious  development 
of  manufactures  in  England,  greatly  stimulated  the 
growth  of  cotton  in  the  ever-enlarging  area  of  the 
Gulf  states,  and  created  an  immense  demand  for 
slave-labour,  just  at  the  time  when  the  importation 
of  negroes  from  Africa  came  to  an  end.  The 
breeding  of  slaves,  to  be  sold  to  the  planters  of  the 
Gulf  states,  then  became  such  a  profitable  occupa 
tion  in  Virginia  as  entirely  to  change  the  popular 
feeling  about  slavery.  But  until  1808  Virginia 
sympathized  with  the  anti-slavery  sentiment  which 


74     THE   THIRTEEN  COMMONWEALTHS. 

was  growing  up  in  the  northern  states ;  and  the 
same  was  true  of  Maryland.  Emancipation  was, 
however,  much  more  easy  to  accomplish  in  the 
north,  because  the  number  of  slaves  was  small,  and 
economic  circumstances  distinctly  favoured  free 
labour.  In  the  work  of  gradual  emancipation  the 
little  state  of  Delaware  led  the  way.  In  its  new  con 
stitution  of  1776  the  further  introduction  of  slaves 
was  prohibited,  all  restraints  upon  emancipation 
having  already  been  removed.  In  the  assembly  of 
Virginia  in  1778  a  bill  prohibiting  the  further  in 
troduction  of  slaves  was  moved  and  carried  by 
Thomas  Jefferson,  and  the  same  measure  was  passed 
in  Maryland  in  1783,  while  both  these  states  re 
moved  all  restraints  upon  emancipation.  North 
Carolina  was  not  ready  to  go  quite  so  far,  but  in 
1786  she  sought  to  discourage  the  slave-trade  by 
putting  a  duty  of  £5  per  head  on  all  negroes  there 
after  imported.  New  Jersey  followed  the  example 
of  Maryland  and  Virginia.  Pennsylvania  went 
farther.  In  1780  its  assembly  enacted  that  no 
more  slaves  should  be  brought  in,  and  that  all 
children  of  slaves  born  after  that  date  should  be 
free.  The  same  provisions  were  made  by  New 
Hampshire  in  its  new  constitution  of  1783,  and  by 
the  assemblies  of  Connecticut  and  Rhode  Island  in 
1784.  New  York  went  farther  still,  and  in  1785 
enacted  that  all  children  of  slaves  thereafter  born 
should  not  only  be  free,  but  should  be  admitted  to 
vote  on  the  same  conditions  as  other  freemen.  In 
1788  Virginia,  which  contained  many  free  negroes, 
•enacted  that  any  person  convicted  of  kidnapping 
or  selling  into  slavery  any  free  person  should  suffer 


THE   THIRTEEN  COMMONWEALTHS.      75 

death  on  the  gallows.  Summing  up  all  these  facts, 
we  see  that  within  two  years  after  the  independence 
of  the  United  States  had_beejj  acknowledged  by 
England,  while  the  two  southernmost  states  had 
done  nothing  to  check  the  growth  of  slavery,  North 
Carolina  had  discouraged  the  importation  of  slaves ; 
Virginia,  Maryland,  Delaware,  and  New  Jersey 
had  stopped  such  importation  and  removed  all  re 
straint  upon  emancipation  ;  and  all  the  remaining 
states,  except  Massachusetts,  had  made  gradual 
emancipation  compulsory.  Massachusetts  had  gone"-' 
still  farther.  Before  the  Eevolution  the  anti- 
slavery  feeling  had  been  stronger  there  than  in 
any  other  state,  and  cases  brought  into  court  for 
the  purpose  of  testing  the  legality  of  slavery  had 
been  decided  in  favour  of  those  who  were  opposed 
to  the  continuance  of  that  barbarous  institution. 
In  1777  an  American  cruiser  brought  into  the  port 
of  Salem  a  captured  British  ship  with  slaves  on 
board,  and  these  slaves  were  advertised  for  sale, 
but  on  complaint  being  made  before  the  legislature 
they  were  set  free.  The  new  constitution  of  1780 
contained  a  declaration  of  rights  which  asserted 
that  all  men  are  born  free  and  have  an  equal  and 
inalienable  right  to  defend  their  lives  and  liberties, 
to  acquire  property,  and  to  seek  and  obtain  safety 
and  happiness.  The  supreme  court  presently  de 
cided  that  this  clause  worked  the  abolition  of  slav 
ery,  and  accordingly  Massachusetts  was  the  first  of 
American  states,  within  the  limits  of  the  Union,  to 
become  in  the  full  sense  of  the  words  a  free  com 
monwealth.  Of  the  negro  inhabitants,  not  more 
than  six  thousand  in  number,  a  large  proportion 


76     THE   THIRTEEN  COMMONWEALTHS. 

had  already  for  a  long  time  enjoyed  freedom  ;  and 
all  were  now  admitted  to  the  suffrage  on  the  same 
terms  as  other  citizens. 

By  the  revolutionary  legislation  of  the  states 
some  progress  was  also  effected  in  the  direction  of 
a  more  complete  religious  freedom.     Pennsylvania 
and  Delaware  were  the  only  states  in  which  all 
Pro  ess  to-      Clmstian  sects  stood  socially  and  politi- 
^  freedom    cally  on  an  equal  footing.     In  Khode 
Island   all    Protestants   enjoyed   equal 
privileges,  but  Catholics  were  debarred  from  vot 
ing.      In    Massachusetts,    New    Hampshire,    and 
Connecticut,  the    old    Puritan  Congregationalism 
was  the  established  religion.     The  Congregational 
church  was  supported  by  taxes,  and  the  minister, 
once  chosen,  kept  his  place  for  life  or  during  good 
behaviour.     He  could  not  be  got  rid  of  unless  for 
mally  investigated  and  dismissed  by  an  ecclesiasti 
cal  council.     Laws  against  blasphemy,  which  were 
virtually  laws  against  heresy,  were  in  force  in  these 
three  states.     In  Massachusetts,  Catholic   priests 
were   liable   to   imprisonment  for  life.     Any  one 
who  should  dare  to  speculate  too  freely  about  the 
nature  of  Christ,  or  the  philosophy  of  the  plan  of 
salvation,  or  to  express  a  doubt  as  to  the  plenary 
inspiration  of  every  word  between  the  two  covers 
of  the  Bible,  was  subject  to  fine  and  imprisonment. 
The   tithing-nian    still   arrested    Sabbath-breakers 
and  shut  them  up  in  the  town-cage  in  the  market 
place  ;  he  stopped  all  unnecessary  riding  or  driving 
on  Sunday,  and  haled  people  off  to  the  meeting 
house  whether  they  would  or  not.     Such  restraints 
upon  liberty  were  still  endured  by  people  who  had 


THE   THIRTEEN  COMMONWEALTHS.      11 

dared  and  suffered  so  much  for  liberty's  sake. 
The  men  of  Boston  strove  hard  to  secure  the  repeal 
of  these  barbarous  laws  and  the  disestablishment 
of  the  Congregational  church  ;  but  they  were  out 
voted  by  the  delegates  from  the  rural  towns.  The 
most  that  could  be  accomplished  was  the  provision 
that  dissenters  might  escape  the  church-rate  by 
supporting  a  church  of  their  own.  The  nineteenth 
century  was  to  arrive  before  church  and  state  were 
finally  separated  in  Massachusetts.  The  new  con 
stitution  of  New  Hampshire  was  similarly  illiberal, 
and  in  Connecticut  no  change  was  made.  Rhode 
Island  nobly  distinguished  herself  by  contrast 
when  in  1784  she  extended  the  franchise  to  Cath 
olics. 

In  the  six  states  just  mentioned  the  British  gov 
ernment  had  been  hindered  by  charter,  and  by  the 
overwhelming  opposition  of  the  people,  from  seri 
ously  trying  to  establish  the  Episcopal  church. 
The  sure  fate  of  any  such  mad  experiment  had 
been  well  illustrated  in  the  time  of  Andros.  In 
the  other  seven  states  there  were  no  such  insupera 
ble  obstacles.  The  Church  of  England  was  main 
tained  with  languid  acquiescence  in  New  York. 
By  the  Quakers  and  Presbyterians  of  New  Jersey 
and  North  Carolina,  as  well  as  in  half-Catholic, 
half-Puritan  Maryland,  its  supremacy  was  unwill 
ingly  endured  ;  in  the  turbulent  frontier  common 
wealth  of  Georgia  it  was  accepted  with  easy  con 
tempt.  Only  in  South  Carolina  and  Virginia  hail 
the  Church  of  England  ever  possessed  any  real 
hold  upon  the  people.  The  Episcopal  clergy  of 
South  Carolina,  men  of  learning  and  high  charac- 


78     THE   THIRTEEN  COMMONWEALTHS. 

ter,  elected  by  their  own  congregations  instead  of 
being  appointed  to  their  livings  by  a  patron,  were 
thoroughly  independent,  and  in  the  late  war  their 
powerful  influence  had  been  mainly  exerted  in 
behalf  of  the  patriot  cause.  Hence,  while  they 
retained  their  influence  after  the  close  of  the  war, 
there  was  no  difficulty  in  disestablishing  the  church. 
Jt  felt  itself  able  to  stand  without  government  sup 
port.  As  soon  as  the  political  separation  from 
England  was  effected,  the  Episcopal  church  was 
accordingly  separated  from  the  state,  not  only  in 
South  Carolina,  but  in  all  the  states  in  which  it 
had  hitherto  been  upheld  by  the  authority  of  the 
British  government ;  and  in  the  constitutions  of 
New  Jersey,  Georgia,  and  the  two  Carolinas,  no 
less  than  in  those  of  Delaware  and  Pennsylvania, 
it  was  explicitly  provided  that  no  man  should  be 
obliged  to  pay  any  church  rate  or  attend  any  reli 
gious  service  save  according  to  his  own  free  and 
unhampered  will. 

The  case  of  Virginia  was  peculiar.  At  first  the 
Church  of  England  had  taken  deep  root  there 
because  of  the  considerable  immigration  of  mem 
bers  of  the  Cavalier  party  after  the  downfall  of 
Charles  I.  Most  of  the  great  statesmen  of  Vir 
ginia  in  the  Revolution  —  such  as  Washington, 
Madison,  Mason,  Jefferson,  Pendleton,  Henry,  the 
Lees,  and  the  Randolphs  —  were  de- 

Church  and  ~  " 

state  in  vir-      scendants  of  Cavaliers  and  members  of  . 

the  Church  of  England.  But  for  a  long 
time  the  Episcopal  clergy  had  been  falling  into 
discredit.  Many  of  them  were  appointed  by  the 
British  government  and  ordained  by  the  Bishop 


THE   THIRTEEN  COMMONWEALTHS.      79 

of  London,  and  they  were  affected  by  the  irreli 
gious  listlessness  and  low  moral  tone  of  the  English 
church  in  the  eighteenth  century.  The  Virginia 
legislature  thought  it  necessary  to  pass  special  laws 
prohibiting  these  clergymen  from  drunkenness  and 
riotous  living.  It  was  said  that  they  spent  more 
time  in  hunting  foxes  and  betting  on  race-horses 
than  in  conducting  religious  services  or  visiting 
the  sick;  and  according  to  Bishop  Meade,  many 
dissolute  parsons,  discarded  from  the  church  in 
England  as  unworthy,  were  yet  thought  fit  to  be 
presented  with  livings  in  Virginia.  To  this  gen 
eral  character  of  the  clergy  there  were  many  ex 
ceptions.  There  were  many  excellent  clergymen, 
especially  among  the  native  Virginians,  whose  ap 
pointment  depended  to  some  extent  upon  the  repute 
in  which  they  were  held  by  their  neighbours.  But 
on  the  whole  the  system  was  such  as  to  illustrate 
all  the  worst  vices  of  a  church  supported  by  the 
temporal  power.  The  Revolution  achieved  the  dis 
comfiture  of  a  clergy  already  thus  deservedly  dis 
credited.  The  parsons  mostly  embraced  the  cause 
of  the  crown,  but  failed  to  carry  their  congrega 
tions  with  them,  and  thus  they  found  themselves 
arrayed  in  hopeless  antagonism  to  popular  senti 
ment  in  a  state  which  contained  perhaps  fewer 
Tories  in  proportion  to  its  population  than  any 
other  of  the  thirteen. 

At  the  same  time  the  Episcopal  church  itself 
had  gradually  come  to  be  a  minority  in  the  com 
monwealth.  For  more  than  half  a  century  Scotch 
and  Welsh  Presbyterians,  German  Lutherans, 
English  Quakers,  and  Baptists,  had  been  work- 


80     THE   THIRTEEN  COMMONWEALTHS. 

ing  their  way  southward  from  Pennsylvania  and 
New  Jersey,  and  had  settled  in  the  fertile  country 
west  of  the  Blue  Ridge.  Daniel  Morgan,  who  had 
won  the  most  brilliant  battle  of  the  Revolution, 
was  one  of  these  men,  and  sturdiness  was  a  chief 
characteristic  of  most  of  them.  So  long  as  these 
frontier  settlers  served  as  a  much-needed  bulwark 
against  the  Indians,  the  church  saw  fit  to  ignore 
them  and  let  them  build  meeting-houses  and  carry 
on  religious  services  as  they  pleased.  But  when 
the  peril  of  Indian  attack  had  been  thrust  west 
ward  into  the  Ohio  valley,  and  these  dissenting 
communities  had  waxed  strong  and  prosperous, 
the  ecclesiastical  party  in  the  state  undertook  to 
lay  taxes  on  them  for  the  support  of  the  Church 
of  England,  and  to  compel  them  to  receive  Epis 
copal  clergymen  to  preach  for  them,  to  bless  them 
in  marriage,  and  to  bury  their  dead.  The  imme 
diate  consequence  was  a  revolt  which  not  only 
overthrew  the  established  church  in  Virginia,  but 
nearly  effected  its  ruin.  The  troubles  began  in 
1768,  when  the  Baptists  had  made  their  way  into 
the  centre  of  the  state,  and  three  of  their  preach 
ers  were  arrested  by  the  sheriff  of  Spottsylvania. 
As  the  indictment  was  read  against  these  men  for 
"  preaching  the  gospel  contrary  to  law,"  a  deep 
and  solemn  voice  interrupted  the  proceedings. 
Patrick  Henry  had  come  on  horseback  many  a 
mile  over  roughest  roads  to  listen  to  the  trial, 
and  this  phrase,  which  savoured  of  the  religious 
despotisms  of  old,  was  quite  too  much  for  him. 
"May  it  please  your  worships,"  he  exclaimed, 
M  what  did  I  hear  read  ?  Did  I  hear  an  expression 


THE   THIRTEEN  COMMONWEALTHS.      81 

that  these  men,  whom  your  worships  are  about  to 
try  for  misdemeanour,  are  charged  with  preaching 
the  gospel  of  the  Son  of  GodJ  "     The  shamefast 
silence  and  confusion  which  ensued  was  of  ill  omen 
for  the  success  of  an  undertaking  so  unwelcome  to 
the  growing  liberalism  of  the  time.     The  zeal  of 
the  persecuted  Baptists  was  presently  reinforced 
by  the  learning  and  4he  dialectic  skill  of  the  Pres 
byterian  ministers.     Unlike  the  Puritans  of  New 
England,  the  Presbyterians  were  in  favour  of  the 
total  separation  of  church  from  state.     It  was  one 
of  their  cardinal  principles  that  the  civil  magistrate 
had  no  right  to  interfere  in  any  way  with  matters 
of   religion.     By   taking  this   broad   ground  they 
secured  the  powerful  aid  of  Thomas  Jefferson,  and 
afterwards  of  Madison  and  Mason.     The  contro 
versy  went  on  through  all  the  years  of  the  Revo 
lutionary  War,  while  all  Virginia,  from  the  sea  to 
the  mountains,  rang  with  fulminations  and  argu 
ments.     In  1776  Jefferson  and  Mason  succeeded 
in  carrying  a  bill  which  released  all  dissenters  from 
parish  rates  and  legalized  all  forms  of  worship. 
At  last  in  1785  Madison  won  the  crowning  victory 
in  the  Religious  Freedom  Act,  by  which  the  Church 
of  England  was  disestablished  and  all  Madisonand 
parish  rates  abolished,  and  still  more,   f?e™m  Act, 
all  religious  tests  were  done  away  with.   1785' 
In  this  last   respect  Virginia  came  to  the  front 
among  all  the  American  states,  as  Massachusetts 
had  come  to  the  front  in  the  abolition  of  negrfl 
slavery.     Nearly  all  the  states  still  imposed  reli 
gious  tests  upon  civil  office-holders,  from    simply 
declaring  a  general  belief  in  the  infallibleness  of 


82     THE   THIRTEEN  COMMONWEALTHS. 

the  Bible  to  accepting  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity. 
The  Virginia  statute,  which  declared  that  "  opinion 
in  matters  of  religion  shall  in  nowise  diminish, 
enlarge,  or  affect  civil  capacities,"  was  translated 
into  French  and  Italian,  and  was  widely  read  and 
commented  on  in  Europe. 

It  is  the  historian's  unpleasant  duty  to  add  that 
the  victory  thus  happily  won  was  ungenerously  fol 
lowed  up.  Theological  and  political  odium  com 
bined  to  overwhelm  the  Episcopal  church  in  Vir 
ginia.  The  persecuted  became  persecutors.  It 
was  contended  that  the  property  of  the  church, 
having  been  largely  created  by  unjustifiable  taxa 
tion,  ought  to  be  forfeited.  In  1802  its  parson 
ages  and  glebe  lands  were  sold,  its  parishes  wiped 
out,  and  its  clergy  left  without  a  calling.  "A 
reckless  sensualist,"  said  Dr.  Hawks,  4' adminis 
tered  the  morning  dram  to  his  guests  from  the 
silver  cup  "  used  in  the  communion  service.  But 
in  all  this  there  is  a  manifest  historic  lesson.  That 
it  should  have  been  possible  thus  to  deal  with  the 
Episcopal  church  in  Virginia  shows  forcibly  the 
moribund  condition  into  which  it  had  been  brought 
through  dependence  upon  the  extraneous  aid  of  a 
political  sovereignty  from  which  the  people  of  Vir 
ginia  were  severing  their  allegiance.  The  lesson 
is  most  vividly  enhanced  by  the  contrast  with  the 
church  of  South  Carolina  which,  rooted  in  its  own 
soil,  was  quite  able  to  stand  alone  when  govern 
ment  aid  was  withdrawn.  In  Virginia  the  church 
in  which  George  Washington  was  reared  had  so 
nearly  vanished  by  the  year  1830  that  Chief  Jus 
tice  Marshall  said  it  was  folly  to  dream  of  reviv- 


THE   THIRTEEN  COMMONWEALTHS.      83 

ing  so  dead  a  thing.  Nevertheless,  under  the 
noble  ministration  of  its  great  bishop,  William 
Meade,  the  Episcopal  church  iir  Virginia,  no 
longer  relying  upon  state  aid,  but  trusting  in  the 
divine  persuasive  power  of  spiritual  truth,  was  even 
then  entering  upon  a  new  life  and  beginning  to 
exercise  a  most  wholesome  influence. 

The  separation  of  the  English  church  in  Amer 
ica  from  the  English  crown  was  the  occasion  of  a 
curious  difficulty  with  regard  to  the  ordination  of 
bishops.  Until  after  the  Revolution  there  were  no 
bishops  of  that  church  in  America,  and  between 
1783  and  1785  it  was  not  clear  how  candidates  for 
holy  orders  could  receive  the  necessary  consecra 
tion.  In  1784  a  young  divinity  student 
from  Maryland,  named  Mason  Weems,  andsamuei 

J  .  .  Seabury. 

who  had  been  studying  for  some  time 
in  England,  applied  to  the  Bishop  of  London  for 
admission  to  holy  orders,  but  was  rudely  refused. 
Weems  then  had  recourse  to  Watson,  Bishop  of 
Llandaff,  author  of  the  famous  reply  to  Gibbon. 
Watson  treated  him  kindly  and  advised  him  to  get 
a  letter  of  recommendation  from  the  governor  of 
Maryland,  but  after  this  had  been  obtained  he  re 
ferred  him  to  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury,  who 
said  that  nothing  could  be  done  without  the  con 
sent  of  Parliament.  As  the  law  stood,  no  one 
could  be  admitted  into  the  ranks  of  the  English 
clergy  without  taking  the  oath  of  allegiance  and 
acknowledging  the  king  of  England  as  the  head  of 
the  church.  Weems  then  wrote  to  John  Adams 
at  the  Hague,  and  to  Franklin  at  Paris,  to  see  if 
there  were  any  Protestant  bishops  on  the  Con* 


84     THE   THIRTEEN  COMMONWEALTHS. 

tinent  from  whom  he  could  obtain  consecration. 
A  rather  amusing  diplomatic  correspondence  en 
sued,  and  finally  the  king  of  Denmark,  after  tak 
ing  theological  advice,  kindly  offered  the  services 
of  a  Danish  bishop,  who  was  to  perform  the  cere 
mony  in  Latin.  Weems  does  not  seem  to  have 
availed  himself  of  this  permission,  probably  because 
the  question  soon  reached  a  more  satisfactory  solu 
tion.1  About  the  same  time  the  Episcopal  church 
in  Connecticut  sent  one  of  its  ministers,  Samuel 
Seabury  of  New  London,  to  England,  to  be  or 
dained  as  bishop.  The  oaths  of  allegiance  and 
supremacy  stood  as  much  in  the  way  of  the  learned 
and  famous  minister  as  in  that  of  the  young  and 
obscure  student.  Seabury  accordingly  appealed  to 
November  14,  *^e  non-juring  Jacobite  bishops  of  the 
Episcopal  church  of  Scotland,  and  at 
length  was  duly  ordained  at  Aberdeen  as  bishop 
of  the  diocese  of  Connecticut.  While  Seabury 
was  in  England,  the  churches  in  the  various  states 

1  I  suppose  it  was  this  same  Mason  Weems  that  was  afterward 
known  in  Virginia  as  Parson  Weems,  of  Pohick  parish,  near 
Mount  Vernon.  See  Magazine  of  American  History,  iii.  465-472  ; 
v.  85-90.  At  first  an  eccentric  preacher,  Parson  Weems  became 
an  itinerant  violin-player  and  book-peddler,  and  author  of  that 
edifying"  work,  The  Life  of  George  Washington,  with  Curious  An 
ecdotes  equally  Honourable  to  Himself  and  Exemplary  to  his  Young 
Countrymen.  On  the  title-page  the  author  describes  himself  as 
"formerly  rector  of  Mount  Vernon  Parish," — which  Bishop 
Meade  calls  preposterous.  The  book  is  a  farrago  of  absurdities, 
reminding  one,  alike  in  its  text  and  its  illustrations,  of  an  over 
grown  English  chap-book  of  the  olden  time.  It  has  had  an  enor 
mous  sale,  and  has  very  likely  contributed  more  than  any  other 
single  book  toward  forming  the  popular  notion  of  Washington. 
It  seems  to  have  been  this  fiddling  parson  that  first  gave  currency 
to  the  everlasting  story  of  the  cherry-tree  and  the  little  hatchet. 


THE   THIRTEEN  COMMONWEALTHS.      85 

chose  delegates  to  a  general  convention,  which 
framed  a  constitution  for  the  "  Protestant  Epis 
copal  Church  of  the  United  States  of  America." 
Advowsons  were  abolished,  some  parts  of  the  lit 
urgy  were  dropped,  and  the  tenure  of  ministers, 
even  of  bishops,  was  to  be  during  good  behaviour. 
At  the  same  time  a  friendly  letter  was  sent  to  the 
bishops  of  England,  urging  them  to  secure,  if  pos 
sible,  an  act  of  Parliament  whereby  American 
clergymen  might  be  ordained  without  taking  the 
oaths  of  allegiance  and  supremacy.  Such  an  act 
was  obtained  without  much  difficulty,  and  three 
American  bishops  were  accordingly  consecrated  in 
due  form.  The  peculiar  ordination  of  Seabury 
was  also  recognized  as  valid  by  the  general  con 
vention,  and  thus  the  Episcopal  church  in  Amer 
ica  was  fairly  started  on  its  independent  career. 

This  foundation  of  a  separate  episcopacy  west 
of  the  Atlantic  was  accompanied  by  the  further 
separation  of  the  Methodists  as  a  distinct  religious 
society.  Although  John  Wesley  regarded  the  no 
tion  of  an  apostolical  succession  as  superstitious, 
he  had  made  no  attempt  to  separate  his  followers 
from  the  national  church.  He  translated  the  titles 
of  "  bishop  "  and  "  priest "  from  Greek  into  Latin 
and  English,  calling  them  "  superintendent "  and 
"  elder,"  but  he  did  not  deny  the  king's  headship. 
Meanwhile  during  the  long  period  of  his  preaching 
there  had  begun  to  grow  up  a  Methodist  church 
in  America.  George  Whitefield  had  come  over 
and  preached  in  Georgia  in  1737,  and  in  Massa 
chusetts  in  1744,  where  he  encountered  much  op 
position  on  the  part  of  the  Puritan  clergy.  But 


86     THE   THIRTEEN  COMMONWEALTHS. 

the  first  Methodist  church  in  America  was  founded 

in  the  city  of  New  York  in  1766.    In  1772  Wesley 

sent  over  Francis  Asbury,  a  man  of  shrewd  sense 

and  deep  religious  feeling,  to  act  as  his 

Francis  As 
bury  and  the     assistant  and  representative  in  this  coun- 

Methodists.  * 

try.  At  that  time  there  were  not  more 
than  a  thousand  Methodists,  with  six  preachers, 
and  all  these  were  in  the  middle  and  southern  col 
onies  ;  but  within  five  years,  largely  owing  to  the 
zeal  and  eloquence  of  Asbury,  these  numbers  had 
increased  sevenfold.  At  the  end  of  the  war,  see 
ing  the  American  Methodists  cut  loose  from  the 
English  establishment,  Wesley  in  his  own  house  at 
Bristol,  with  the  aid  of  two  presbyters,  proceeded 
to  ordain  ministers  enough  to  make  a  presbytery, 
and  thereupon  set  apart  Thomas  Coke  to  be 
"  superintendent "  or  bishop  for  America.  On  the 
same  day  of  November,  1784,  on  which  Seabury 
was  consecrated  by  the  non-jurors  at  Aberdeen, 
Coke  began  preaching  and  baptizing  in  Mary 
land,  in  rude  chapels  built  of  logs  or  under  the 
shade  of  forest  trees.  On  Christmas  Eve  a  con 
ference  assembled  at  Baltimore,  at  which  Asbury 
was  chosen  bishop  by  some  sixty  ministers  pres 
ent,  and  ordained  by  Coke,  and  the  constitution  of 
the  Methodist  church  in  America  was  organized. 
Among  the  poor  white  people  of  the  southern 
states,  and  among  the  negroes,  the  new  church 
rapidly  obtained  great  sway ;  and  at  a  somewhat 
later  date  it  began  to  assume  considerable  propor 
tions  in  the  north. 

Four  years  after  this    the   Presbyterians,   who 
were  most  numerous  in  the  middle  states,  organ- 


THE   THIRTEEN  COMMONWEALTHS.      87 

ized  their  government  in  a  general  assembly,  which 
was  also  attended  by  Congregationalist  delegates 
from  New  England  in  the  capacity  of  simple  ad 
visers.  The  theological  difference  between  these 
two  sects  was  so  slight  that  an  alliance  grew  up 
between  them,  and  in  Connecticut  some  fifty  years 
later  their  names  were  often  inaccurately  used  as 
if  synonymous.  Such  a  difference  seemed  to  vanish 
when  confronted  with  the  newer  differences  that 
began  to  spring  up  soon  after  the  close 

F        ^  Presbyterians ; 

of  the  Revolution.  I  he  revolt  against  Roman  catho- 
the  doctrine  of  eternal  punishment  was 
already  beginning  in  New  England,  and  among 
the  learned  and  thoughtful  clergy  of  Massachusetts 
the  seeds  of  ITnitarianism  were  germinating.  The 
gloomy  intolerance  of  an  older  time  was  beginning 
to  yield  to  more  enlightened  views.  In  1789  the 
first  Roman  Catholic  church  in  New  England  was 
dedicated  in  Boston.  So  great  had  been  the  preju 
dice  against  this  sect  that  in  1784  there  were  only 
600  Catholics  in  all  New  England.  In  the  four 
southernmost  states,  on  the  other  hand,  there  were 
2,500 ;  in  New  York  and  New  Jersey  there  were 
1,700;  in  Delaware  and  Pennsylvania  there  were 
7,700;  in  Maryland  there  were  20,000;  while 
among  the  French  settlements  along  the  eastern 
bank  of  the  Mississippi  there  were  supposed  to  be 
nearly  12,000.  In  1786  John  Carroll,  a  cousin  of 
Charles  Carroll  of  Carrollton,  was  selected  by  the 
Pope  as  his  apostolic  vicar,  and  was  afterward  suc 
cessively  made  bishop  of  Baltimore  and  archbishop 
of  the  United  States.  By  1789  all  obstacles  to  the 
Catholic  worship  had  been  done  away  with  in  all 
the  states. 


88     THE   THIRTEEN  COMMONWEALTHS. 

In  this  brief  survey  of  the  principal  changes 
wrought  in  the  several  states  by  the  separation 
from  England,  one  cannot  fail  to  be  struck  with 
their  conservative  character.  Things  proceeded 
just  as  they  had  done  from  time  immemorial  with 
the  English  race.  Forms  of  government  were 
modified  just  far  enough  to  adapt  them  to  the  new 
situation  and  no  farther.  The  abolition  of  entails, 
of  primogeniture,  and  of  such  few  manorial  privi^ 
leges  as  existed,  were  useful  reforms  of  far  less 
sweeping  character  than  similar  changes  would 
have  been  in  England ;  and  they  were  accordingly 
effected  with  ease.  Even  the  abolition  of  slavery 
in  the  northern  states,  where  negroes  were  few  in 
number  and  chiefly  employed  in  domestic  service, 
wrought  nothing  in  the  remotest  degree  resembling 
a  social  revolution.  But  nowhere  was  this  consti 
tutionally  cautious  and  precedent-loving  mode  of 
proceeding  more  thoroughly  exemplified  than  in 
the  measures  just  related,  whereby  the  Episcopal 
and  Methodist  churches  were  separated  from  the 
English  establishment  and  placed  upon  an  inde* 
pendent  footing  in  the  new  world.  From  another 
Except  m  the  P°int  °^  v^ew  ^  may  be  observed  that  all 
SSerye2ii  these  changes,  except  in  the  instance  of 
weereefavoSie  slavery>  tended  to  assimilate  the  states 
to  union.  to  one  another  in  their  political  and 
social  condition.  So  far  as  they  went,  these  changes 
were  favourable  to  union,  and  this  was  perhaps 
especially  true  in  the  case  of  the  ecclesiastical 
bodies,  which  brought  citizens  of  different  states 
into  cooperation  in  pursuit  of  specific  ends  in 
common. 


THE  THIRTEEN  COMMONWEALTHS.      89 

A-t  the  same  time  this  survey  most  forcibly  re 
minds  us  how  completely  the  legislation  which 
immediately  affected  the  daily  domestic  life  of  the 
citizen  was  the  legislation  of  the  single  state  in 
which  he  lived.  In  the  various  reforms  just  passed 
in  review  the  United  States  government  took  no 
part,  and  could  not  from  the  nature  of  the  case. 
Even  to-day  our  national  government  has  no  power 
over  such  matters,  and  it  is  to  be  hoped  it  never 
will  have.  But  at  the  present  day  our  national 
government  performs  many  important  functions  of 
common  concern,  which  a  century  ago  were  scarcely 
performed  at  all.  The  organization  of  the  single 
state  was  old  in  principle  and  well  understood  by 
everybody.  It  therefore  worked  easily,  and  such 
changes  as  those  above  described  were  brought 
about  with  little  friction.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
principles  upon  which  the  various  relations  of  the 
states  to  each  other  were  to  be  adjusted  were  not 
well  understood.  There  was  wide  disagreement 
upon  the  subject,  and  the  attempt  to  compromise 
between  opposing  views  was  not  at  first  successful. 
Hence,  in  the  management  of  affairs  which  con 
cerned  the  United  States  as  a  nation,  we  shall  not 
find  the  central  machinery  working  smoothly  or 
quietly.  We  are  about  to  traverse  a  period  of 
uncertainty  and  confusion,  in  which  it  required  all 
the  political  sagacity  and  all  the  good  temper  of 
the  people  to  save  the  half -built  ship  of  state  from 
going  to  pieces  on  the  rocks  of  civil  contention. 


CHAPTER  III. 

THE   LEAGUE   OF   FRIENDSHIP. 

THAT  some  kind  of  union  existed  between  the 
states  was  doubted  by  no  one.  Ever  since  the 
assembling  of  the  first  Continental  Congress  in 
1774  the  thirteen  commonwealths  had  acted  in 
concert,  and  sometimes  most  generously,  as  when 
Maryland  and  South  Carolina  had  joined  in  the 
Declaration  of  Independence  without  any  crying 
grievances  of  their  own,  from  a  feeling  that  the 
cause  of  one  should  be  the  cause  of  all.  It  has 
sometimes  been  said  that  the  Union  was  in  its  ori 
gin  a  league  of  sovereign  states,  each  of  which  sur 
rendered  a  specific  portion  of  its  sovereignty  to 
the  federal  government  for  the  sake  of  the  common 
welfare.  Grave  political  arguments  have  been 
based  upon  this  alleged  fact,  but  such  an  account 
of  the  matter  is  not  historically  true.  There  never 
was  a  time  when  Massachusetts  or  Virginia  was  an 
absolutely  sovereign  state  like  Holland  or  France. 
Sovereign  over  their  own  internal  affairs  they  are 
to-day  as  they  were  at  the  time  of  the  Revolution, 
but  there  was  never  a  time  when  they  presented 
themselves  before  other  nations  as  sovereign,  or 
were  recognized  as  such.  Under  the  government 
of  England  before  the  Revolution  the  thirteen 
commonwealths  were  independent  of  one  another, 


THE  LEAGUE   OF  FRIENDSHIP.  91 

and  were  held   together,  juxtaposed   rather   than 
united,  only  through  their  allegiance  to 


the  British  crown.     Had  that  allegiance  never  enjoyed 

to  complete  sov- 

been  maintained  there  is  no  telling  how  ereisuty- 
long  they  might  have  gone  on  thus  disunited  ;  and 
this,  it  seems,  should  be  one  of  our  chief  reasons 
for  rejoicing  that  the  political  connection  with 
England  was  dissolved  when  it  was.  A  permanent 
redress  of  grievances,  and  even  virtual  indepen 
dence  such  as  Canada  now  enjoys,  we  might  per 
haps  have  gained  had  we  listened  to  Lord  North's 
proposals  after  the  surrender  of  Burgoyne  ;  but 
the  formation  of  the  Federal  Union  would  cer 
tainly  have  been  long  postponed,  and  when  we 
realize  the  grandeur  of  the  work  which  we  are  now 
doing  in  the  world  through  the  simple  fact  of  such 
a  union,  we  cannot  fail  to  see  that  such  an  issue 
would  have  been  extremely  unfortunate.  How 
ever  this  may  be,  it  is  clear  that  until  the  connec 
tion  with  England  was  severed  the  thirteen  com 
monwealths  were  not  united,  nor  were  they 
sovereign.  It  is  also  clear  that  in  the  very  act  of 
severing  their  connection  with  England  thege  com 
monwealths  entered  into  some  sort  of  union  which 
was  incompatible  with  their  absolute  sovereignty 
taken  severally.  It  was  not  the  people  of  New 
Hampshire,  Massachusetts,  and  so  on  through  the 
list,  that  declared  their  independence  of  Great 
Britain,  but  it  was  the  representatives  of  the 
United  States  in  Congress  assembled,  and  speak 
ing  as  a  single  body  in  the  name  of  the  whole. 
Three  weeks  before  this  declaration  was  adopted, 
Congress  appointed  a  committee  to  draw  up  the 


92  THE  LEAGUE  OF  FRIENDSHIP. 

"articles  of  confederation  and  perpetual  union," 
by  which  the  sovereignty  of  the  several  states  was 
expressly  limited  and  curtailed  in  many  important 
particulars.  This  committee  had  finished  its  work 
by  the  12th  of  July,  but  the  articles  were  not 
adopted  by  Congress  until  the  autumn  of  1777,  and 
they  were  not  finally  put  into  operation  until  the 
spring  of  1781.  During  this  inchoate  period  of 
union  the  action  of  the  United  States  was  that 
of  a  confederation  in  which  some  portion  of  the 
several  sovereignties  was  understood  to  be  sur 
rendered  to  the  whole.  It  was  the  business  of  the 
articles  to  define  the  precise  nature  and  extent  of 
this  surrendered  sovereignty  which  no  state  by  it 
self  ever  exercised.  In  the  mean  time  this  sover 
eignty,  undefined  in  nature  and  extent,  was  exer 
cised,  as  well  as  circumstances  permitted,  by  the 
Continental  Congress. 

A  most  remarkable  body  was  this  Continental 
The  Continen-  Congress.  For  the  vicissitudes  through 
itte^TSdl5  which  it  passed,  there  is  perhaps  no 

nary  character.   other  revolutionary  body,  SaVC  the  Long 

Parliament,  which  can  be  compared  with  it.  For 
its  origin  we  must  look  back  to  the  committees 
of  correspondence  devised  by  Jonathan  Mayhew. 
Samuel  Adams,  and  Dabney  Carr.  First  assem 
bled  in  1774  to  meet  an  emergency  which  was  gen 
erally  believed  to  be  only  temporary,  it  continued 
to  sit  for  nearly  seven  years  before  its  powers  were 
ever  clearly  defined ;  and  during  those  seven  years 
it  exercised  some  of  the  highest  functions  of  sover 
eignty  which  are  possible  to  any  governing  body. 
It  declared  the  independence  of  the  United  States ; 


THE  LEAGUE   OF  FRIENDSHIP.  93 

it  contracted  an  offensive  and  defensive  alliance 
with  France  ;  it  raised  and  organized  a  Continental 
army ;  it  borrowed  large  sums  of  money,  and 
pledged  what  the  lenders  understood  to  be  the 
national  credit  for  their  repayment ;  it  issued  an 
inconvertible  paper  currency,  granted  letters  of 
marque,  and  built  a  navy.  All  this  it  did  in  the 
exercise  of  what  in  later  times  would  have  been 
called  "implied  war  powers,"  and  its  authority 
rested  upon  the  general  acquiescence  in  the  pur 
poses  for  which  it  acted  and  in  the  measures  which 
it  adopted.  Under  such  circumstances  its  functions 
were  very  inefficiently  performed.  But  the  articles 
of  confederation,  which  in  1781  defined  its  powersv 
served  at  the  same  time  to  limit  them  ;  so  that  for 
the  remaining  eight  years  of  its  existence  the  Con 
tinental  Congress  grew  weaker  and  weaker,  until  it 
was  swept  away  to  make  room  for  a  more  efficient 
government. 

John  Dickinson  is  supposed  to  have  been  the 
principal  author  of  the  articles  of  con-  The  articles  of 
federation  ;  but  as  the  work  of  the  com-  confederation- 
mittee  was  done  in  secret  and  has  never  been 
reported,  the  point  cannot  be  determined.  In 
November,  1777,  Congress  sent  the  articles  to  the 
several  state  legislatures,  with  a  circular  letter 
recommending  them  as  containing  the  only  plan  of 
union  at  all  likely  to  be  adopted.  In  the  course  of 
the  next  fifteen  months  the  articles  were  ratified  by 
all  the  states  except  Maryland,  which  refused  to 
sign  until  the  states  laying  claim  to  the  northwest 
ern  lands,  and  especially  Virginia,  should  surrender 
their  claims  to  the  confederation.  We  shall  b 


94  THE  LEAGUE   OF  FRIENDSHIP. 

and  by  see,  when  we  come  to  explain  this  point  in 
detail,  that  from  this  action  of  Maryland  there 
flowed  beneficent  consequences  that  were  little 
dreamed  of.  It  was  first  in  the  great  chain  of 
events  which  led  directly  to  the  formation  of  the 
Federal  Union.  Having  carried  her  point,  Mary 
land  ratified  the  articles  on  the  first  day  of  March, 
1781 ;  and  thus  in  the  last  and  most  brilliant 
period  of  the  war,  while  Greene  was  leading  Corn- 
wallis  on  his  fatal  chase  across  North  Carolina,  the 
confederation  proposed  at  the  time  of  the  Declara 
tion  of  Independence  was  finally  consummated. 

According  to  the  language  of  the  articles,  the 
states  entered  into  a  firm  league  of  friendship  with 
each  other  ;  and  in  order  to  secure  and  perpetuate 
such  friendship,  the  freemen  of  each  state  were  en 
titled  to  all  the  privileges  and  immunities  of  free 
men  in  all  the  other  states.  Mutual  extradition 
of  criminals  was  established,  and  in  each  state  full 
faith  and  credit  was  to  be  given  to  the  records, 
acts,  and  judicial  proceedings  of  every  other  state. 
This  universal  intercitizenship  was  what  gave  real 
ity  to  the  nascent  and  feeble  Union.  In  all  the 
common  business  relations  of  life,  the  man  of  New 
Hampshire  could  deal  with  the  man  of  Georgia  on 
an  equal  footing  before  the  law.  But  this  was  al 
most  the  only  effectively  cohesive  provision  in  the 
whole  instrument.  Throughout  the  remainder  of 
the  articles  its  language  was  largely  devoted  to 
reconciling  the  theory  that  the  states  were  sever 
ally  sovereign  with  the  visible  fact  that  they  were 
already  merged  to  some  extent  in  a  larger  political 
body.  The  sovereignty  of  this  larger  body  was 


THE  LEAGUE   OF  FRIENDSHIP.          95 

vested  in  the  Congress  of  delegates  appointed 
yearly  by  the  states.  No  state  was  to  be  repre 
sented  by  less  than  two  or  more  than  seven  mem 
bers  ;  no  one  could  be  a  delegate  for  more  than 
three  years  out  of  every  six  ;  and  no  delegate  could 
hold  any  salaried  office  under  the  United  States. 
As  in  colonial  times  the  states  had,  to  preserve 
their  self-government,  insisted  upon  paying  their 
governors  and  judges,  instead  of  allowing  them  to 
be  paid  out  of  the  royal  treasury,  so  now  the  dele 
gates  in  Congress  were  paid  by  their  own  states. 
In  determining  questions  in  Congress,  each  state 
had  one  vote,  without  regard  to  population  ;  but  a 
bare  majority  was  not  enough  to  carry  any  impor 
tant  measure.  Not  only  for  such  extraordinary 
matters  as  wars  and  treaties,  but  even  for  the  reg 
ular  and  ordinary  business  of  raising  money  to 
carry  on  the  government,  not  a  single  step  could 
be  taken  without  the  consent  of  at  least  nine  of 
the  thirteen  states ;  and  this  provision  well-nigh 
sufficed  of  itself  to  block  the  wheels  of  federal  leg 
islation.  The  Congress  assembled  each  year  on 
the  first  Monday  of  November,  and  could  not  ad 
journ  for  a  longer  period  than  six  months.  Dur 
ing  its  recess  the  continuity  of  government  was 
preserved  by  an  executive  committee,  consisting  of 
one  delegate  from  each  state,  and  known  as  the 
"  committee  of  the  states."  Saving  such  matters 
of  warfare  or  treaty  as  the  public  interest  might 
require  to  be  kept  secret,  all  the  proceedings  of 
Congress  were  entered  in  a  journal,  to  be  published 
monthly  ;  and  the  yeas  and  nays  must  be  entered 
should  any  delegate  request  it,  The  executive  de- 


96  THE  LEAGUE  OF  FRIENDSHIP. 

partments  of  war,  finance,  and  so  forth  were  in- 
trusted  at  first  to  committees,  until  experience  soon 
showed  the  necessity  of  single  heads.  There  was 
a  president  of  Congress,  who,  as  representing  the 
dignity  of  the  United  States,  was,  in  a  certain 
sense,  the  foremost  person  in  the  country,  but  he 
had  no  more  power  than  any  other  delegate.  Of 
the  fourteen  presidents  between  1774  and  1789, 
perhaps  only  Randolph,  Hancock,  and  Laurens  are 
popularly  remembered  in  that  capacity ;  Jay,  St. 
Clair,  Mifflin,  and  Lee  are  remembered  for  other 
things  ;  Hanson,  Griffin,  and  Boudinot  are  scarcely 
remembered  at  all,  save  by  the  student  of  Ameri 
can  history. 

f~  Between  the  Congress  thus  constituted  and  the 
C.  several  state  governments  the  attributes  of  sov- 
/  ereignty  were  shared  in  such  a  way  as  to  produce 
ia  minimum  of  result  with  a  maximum  of  effort. 
jDhe  states  were  prohibited  from  keeping  up  any 
naval  or  military  force,  except  militia,  or  from  en 
tering  into  any  treaty  or  alliance,  either  with  a 
foreign  power  or  between  themselves,  without  the 
consent  of  Congress.  No  state  could  engage  in 
war  except  by  way  of  defence  against  a  sudden  In 
dian  attack.  Congress  had  the  sole  right  of  deter 
mining  on  peace  and  war,  of  sending  and  receiving 
ambassadors,  of  making  treaties,  of  adjudicating  all 
disputes  between  the  states,  of  managing  Indian 
affairs,  and  of  regulating  the  value  of  coin  and  fix 
ing  the  standard  of  weights  and  measures.  Con 
gress  took  control  of  the  post-office  on  condition 
that  no  more  revenue  should  be  raised  from  postage 
than  should  suffice  to  discharge  'd&  expenses  of  the 


THE  LEAGUE   OF  FRIENDSHIP.          97 

service.  Congress  controlled  the  army,  but  was 
provided  with  no  means  of  raising  soldiers  save 
through  requisitions  upon  the  states,  and  it  could 
only  appoint  officers  above  the  rank  of  colonel ;  the 
organization  of  regiments  was  left  entirely  in  the 
hands  of  the  states.  The'  traditional  and  whole 
some  dread  of  a  standing  army  was  great,  but  there 
was  no  such  deep-seated  jealousy  of  a  navy,  and 
Congress  was  accordingly  allowed  not  only  to  ap 
point  all  naval  officers,  but  also  to  establish  courts 
of  admiralty. 

Several  essential  attributes  of  sovereignty  were 
thus  withheld  from  the  states ;  and  by  assuming 
all  debts  contracted  by  Congress  prior  to  the  adop. 
tion  of  the  articles,  and  solemnly  pledging  the  pub 
lic  faith  for  their  payment,  it  was  implicitly  declared 
that  the  sovereignty  here  accorded  to  Congress  was 
substantially  the  same  as  that  which  it  had  asserted 
and  exercised  ever  since  the  severing  of  the  connec- 
tion  with  England.  The  articles  simply  defined* 
the  relations  of  the  states  to  the  Confederation  as  3 
they  had  already  shaped  themselves.  Indeed,  the 
articles,  though  not  finally  ratiiiecl  till  1781,  had 
been  known  to  Congress  and  to  the  people  ever 
since  1776  as  their  expected  constitution,  and 
political  action  had  been  shaped  in  general  accord 
ance  with  the  theory  on  which  they  had  been  drawn 
up.  They  show  that  political  action  was  at  no 
time  based  on  the  view  of  the  states  as  absolutely 
sovereign,  but  they  also  show  that  the  share  of  sov 
ereignty  accorded  to  Congress  was  very  inadequate 
even  to  the  purposes  of  an  effective  confederation. 
The  position  in  which  they  left  Congress  was  hardly 


98  THE  LEAGUE   OF  FRIENDSHIP. 

more  than  that  of  the  deliberative  head  of  a  league. 
For  the  most  fundamental  of  all  the  at- 

The  articles 

failed  to  create  tributes  of  sovereignty  —  the  power  of 

a  federal   gov-  •  •     A 

eminent  en-      taxation  —  was  not  given  to  Congress. 

dowed  with  f  to 

reaisover-        It    could  neither  raise    taxes   through 

eignty. 

an  excise  nor  through  custom  -  house 
duties ;  it  could  only  make  requisitions  upon  the 
thirteen  members  of  the  confederacy  in  proportion 
to  the  assessed  value  of  their  real  estate,  and  it  was 
not  provided  with  any  means  of  enforcing  these  req 
uisitions.  On  this  point  the  articles  contained 
nothing  beyond  the  vague  promise  of  the  states  to 
obey.  The  power  of  levying  taxes  was  thus  re 
tained  entirely  by  the  states.  They  not  only  im 
posed  direct  taxes,  as  they  do  to-day,  but  they  laid 
duties  on  exports  and  imports,  each  according  to 
its  own  narrow  view  of  its  local  interests.  The 
only  restriction  upon  this  was  that  such  state-im 
posed  duties  must  not  interfere  with  the  stipula 
tions  of  any  foreign  treaties  such  as  Congress 
might  make  in  pursuance  of  treaties  already  pro 
posed  to  the  courts  of  France  and  Spain.  Besides 
all  this,  the  states  shared  with  Congress  the  powers 
of  coining  money,  of  emitting  bills  of  credit,  and  of 
making  their  promissory  notes  a  legal  tender  for 
debts. 

Such  was  the  constitution  under  which  the 
United  States  had  begun  to  drift  toward  anarchy 
even  before  the  close  of  the  Revolutionary  War, 
but  which  could  only  be  amended  by  the  unanimous 
consent  of  all  the  thirteen  states.  The  historian 
cannot  but  regard  this  difficulty  of  amendment  as 
a  fortunate  circumstance  ;  for  in  the  troubles  which 


THE  LEAGUE   OF  FRIENDSHIP.          99 

presently  arose  it  led  the  distressed  people  to  seek 
some  other  method  of  relief,  and  thus  prepared  the 
way  for  the  Convention  of  1787,  which  destroyed 
the  whole  vicious  scheme,  and  gave  us  a  form  of 
government  under  which  we  have  just  completed 
a  century  unparalleled  for  peace  and  prosperity. 
Besides  this  extreme  difficulty  of  amendment,  the 
fatal  defects  of  the  Confederation  were  three  in 
number.  The  first  defect  was  the  two  thirds  vote 
necessary  for  any  important  legislation  in  Congress ; 
under  this  rule  any  five  of  the  states  —  as,  for  ex 
ample,  the  four  southernmost  states  with  Mary 
land,  or  the  four  New  England  states  with  New 
Jersey  —  could  defeat  the  most  sorely  needed  meas 
ures.  The  second  defect  was  the  impossibility  of 
presenting  a  united  front  to  foreign  countries  in  re 
spect  to  commerce.  The  third  and  greatest  defect 
was  the  lack  of  any  mean&>  on  the  part  of  Congress, 
of  enforcing  obedience.  Not  only  was  there  no 
federal  executive  or  judiciary  worthy  of  the  name, 
but  the  central  government  operated  only  upon 
states,  and  not  upon  individuals.  Congress  could 
t,all  for  troops  and  for  money  in  strict  conformity 
with  the  articles ;  but  should  any  state  prove  de 
linquent  in  furnishing  its  quota,  there  were  no  con 
stitutional  means  of  compelling  it  to  obey  the  call. 
This  defect  was  seen  and  deplored  at  the  outset 
by  such  men  as  Washington  and  Madison,  but  the 
only  remedy  which  at  first  occurred  to  them  was 
one  more  likely  to  kill  than  to  cure.  Only  six 
weeks  after  the  ratification  of  the  articles,  Madison 
proposed  an  amendment  "  to  give  to  the  United 
States  full  authority  to  employ  their  force,  as  well 


100         THE  LEAGUE   OF  FRIENDSHIP. 

by  sea  as  by  land,  to  compel  any  delinquent  state 
to  fulfil  its  federal  engagements."  Washington 
approved  of  this  measure,  hoping,  as  he  said,  that 
"  a  knowledge  that  this  power  was  lodged  in  Con 
gress  might  be  the  means  to  prevent  its  ever  being 
exercised,  and  the  more  readily  induce  obedience. 
Indeed,"  added  Washington,  "  if  Congress  were 
unquestionably  possessed  of  the  power,  nothing 
should  induce  the  display  of  it  but  obstinate  dis 
obedience  and  the  urgency  of  the  general  welfare." 
Madison  argued  that  in  the  very  nature  of  the 
Confederation  such  a  right  of  coercion  was  neces 
sarily  implied,  though  not  expressed  in  the  ar 
ticles,  and  much  might  have  been  said  in  behalf 
of  this  opinion.  The  Confederation  explicitly  de 
clared  itself  to  be  perpetual,  yet  how  could  it  per 
petuate  itself  for  a  dozen  years  without  the  right  to 
coerce  its  refractory  members  ?  Practically,  how 
ever,  the  remedy  was  one  which  could  never  have 
been  applied  without  breaking  the  Confedera 
tion  into  fragments.  To  use  the  army  or  navy  in 
coercing  a  state  meant  nothing  less  than  civil  war. 
The  local  yeomanry  would  have  turned  out  against 
the  Continental  army  with  as  high  a  spirit  as  that 
with  which  they  swarmed  about  the  British  enemy 
at  Lexington  or  King's  Mountain.  A  government 
which  could  not  collect  the  taxes  for  its  yearly 
budget  without  firing  upon  citizens  or  blockading 
two  or  three  harbours  would  have  been  the  absurdest 
political  anomaly  imaginable.  No  such  idea  could 
have  entered  the  mind  of  a  statesman  save  from 
the  hope  that  if  one  state  should  prove  refractory, 
all  the  others  would  immediately  frown  upon  it  and 


THE  LEAGUE  OF  FRIENDSHIP.        101 

uphold  Congress  in  overawing  it.  In  such  case  the 
knowledge  that  Congress  had  the  power  would 
doubtless  have  been  enough  to  make  its  exercise 
unnecessary.  But  in  fact  this  hope  was  disap 
pointed,  for  the  delinquency  of  each  state  simply 
set  an  example  of  disobedience  for  all  the  others  to 
follow ;  and  the  amendment,  had  it  been  carried, 
would  merely  have  armed  Congress  with  a  threat 
which  everybody  would  have  laughed  at.  So  mani 
festly  hopeless  was  the  case  to  Pelatiah  Webster 
that  as  early  as  May,  1781,  he  published  an  able 
pamphlet,  urging  the  necessity  for  a  federal  con 
vention  for  overhauling  the  whole  scheme  of  govern 
ment  from  beginning  to  end^_^ 

The  military  weakness  due   to   this   imperfect 
governmental   organization    may  be   il- 

b       .  J  Military  weak- 

lustrated  by  comparing  the   number  of  ness  of  the 

,  .   ,     J?  ,  ,        government. 

regular  troops  which  Congress  was  able 
to  keep  in  the  field  during  the  Revolutionary  War 
with  the  number  maintained  by  the  United  States 
government  during  the  War  of  Secession.  A 
rough  estimate,  obtained  from  averages,  will  suf 
fice  to  show  the  broad  contrast.  In  1863,  the  mid 
dle  year  of  the  War  of  Secession,  the  total  popu 
lation  of  the  loyal  states  was  about  23,491,600,  of 
whom  about  one  fifth,  or  4,698,320,  were  adult 
males  of  military  age.  Supposing  one  adult  male 
out  of  every  five  to  have  been  under  arms  at  one 
time,  the  number  would  have  been  939,664.  Now 
the  total  number  of  troops  enlisted  in  the  northern 
army  during  the  four  years  of  the  war,  reduced  to 
a  uniform  standard,  was  2,320,272,  or  an  average 
of  580,068  under  arms  in  any  single  year.  ID 


102       '  THE  *  LEA&UE '  OF  FRIENDSHIP. 

point  of  fact,  this  average  was  reached  before  the 
middle  of  the  war,  and  the  n'umbers  went  on  in 
creasing,  until  at  the  end  there  were  more  than  a 
million  men  under  arms,  —  at  least  one  out  of  every 
five  adult  males  in  the  northern  states.  On  the 
other  hand,  in  1779,  the  middle  year  of  the  Revo 
lutionary  War,  the  white  population  of  the  United 
States  was  about  2,175,000,  of  whom  435,000  were 
adult  males  of  military  age.  Supposing  one  out 
of  every  five  of  these  to  have  been  under  arms  at 
once,  the  number  would  have  been  87,000.  Now 
in  the  spring  of  1777,  when  the  Continental  Con 
gress  was  at  the  highest  point  of  authority  which 
it  ever  reached,  when  France  was  willing  to  lend  it 
money  freely,  when  its  paper  currency  was  not  yet 
discredited  and  it  could  make  liberal  offers  of 
bounties,  a  demand  was  made  upon  the  states  for 
80,000  men,  or  nearly  one  fifth  of  the  adult  male 
population,  to  serve  for  three  years  or  during  the 
war.  Only  34,820  were  obtained.  The  total  num 
ber  of  men  in  the  field  in  that  most  critical  year, 
including  the  swarms  of  militia  who  came  to  the 
rescue  at  Ridgefield  and  Bennington  and  Oriskany, 
and  the  Pennsylvania  militia  who  turned  out  while 
their  state  was  invaded,  was  68,720.  In  1781, 
when  the  credit  of  Congress  was  greatly  impaired, 
although  military  activity  again  rose  to  a  maximum 
and  it  was  necessary  for  the  people  to  strain  every 
nerve,  the  total  number  of  men  in  the  field,  militia 
and  all,  was  only  29,340,  of  whom  only  13,292 
were  Continentals ;  and  it  was  left  for  the  genius 
of  Washington  and  Greene,  working  with  desper 
ate  energy  and  most  pitiful  resources,  to  save  the 


THE  LEAGUE  OF  FRIENDSHIP.        103 

country.  A  more  impressive  contrast  to  the  readi 
ness  with  which  the  demands  of  the  government 
were  met  in  the  War  of  Secession  can  hardly  be 
imagined.  Had  the  country  put  forth  its  strength 
in  1781  as  it  did  in  1864,  an  army  of  90,000  men 
might  have  overwhelmed  Clinton  at  the  north  and 
Cornwallis  at  the  south,  without  asking  any  fa 
vours  of  the  French  fleet.  Had  it  put  forth  its 
full  strength  in  1777,  four  years  of  active  warfare 
might  have  been  spared.  Mr.  Lecky  explains 
this  difference  by  his  favourite  hypothesis  that  the 
American  Revolution  was  the  work  of  a  few  ultra- 
radical  leaders,  with  whom  the  people  were  not 
generally  in  sympathy;  and  he  thinks  we  could 
not  expect  to  see  great  heroism  or  self-sacrifice 
manifested  by  a  people  who  went  to  war  over  what 
he  calls  a  "  money  dispute." l  But  there  is  no  rea 
son  for  supposing  that  the  loyalists  represented  the 
general  sentiment  of  the  country  in  the  Revolution 
ary  War  any  more  than  the  peace  party  repre 
sented  the  general  sentiment  of  the  northern  states 
in  the  War  of  Secession.  There  is  no  reason  for 
supposing  that  the  people  were  less  at  heart  in  1781 
in  fighting  for  the  priceless  treasure  of  self-govern 
ment  than  they  were  in  1864  when  they  fought  for 
the  maintenance  of  the  pacific  principles  underlying 
our  Federal  Union.  The  differences  in  the  organi 
zation  of  the  government,  and  in  its  power  of  oper 
ating  directly  upon  the  people,  are  quite  enough  to 
explain  the  difference  between  the  languid  conduct 
of  the  earlier  war  and  the  energetic  conduct  of  the 
later. 

1  History  of  England  in  the  Eighteenth  Century,  iii.  447. 


104        THE  LEAGUE  OF  FRIENDSHIP. 

Impossible  as  Congress  found  it  to  fill  the  quotas 
of  the  army,  the  task  of  raising  a  revenue  by  req' 
uisitions  upon  the  states  was  even  more  discourag 
ing.  Every  state  had  its  own  war-debt,  and  several 
were  applicants  for  foreign  loans  not  easy  to  ob 
tain,  so  that  none  could  without  the  greatest  diffi 
culty  raise  a  surplus  to  hand  over  to 

Extreme  diffl-     ~      J  * 

cuity  of  obtain-  Congress.     I  he  Continental  rag-money 

ing  a  revenue.  *  .         ,    ,       ,        , ,  ^          -,       * 

had  ceased  to  circulate  by  the  end  of 
1780,  and  our  foreign  credit  was  nearly  ruined. 
The  French  government  began  to  complain  of  the 
heavy  demands  which  the  Americans  made  upon 
its  exchequer,  and  Vergennes,  in  sending  over  a 
new  loan  in  the  fall  of  1782,  warned  Franklin  that 
no  more  must  be  expected.  To  save  American 
credit  from  destruction,  it  was  at  least  necessary 
that  the  interest  on  the  public  debt  should  be  paid. 
For  this  purpose  Congress  in  1781  asked  permis 
sion  to  levy  a  five  per  cent,  duty  on  imports.  The 
modest  request  was  the  signal  for  a  year  of  angry 
discussion.  Again  and  again  it  was  asked,  If  taxes 
could  thus  be  levied  by  any  power  outside  the 
state,  why  had  we  ever  opposed  the  Stamp  Act  or 
the  tea  duties  ?  The  question  was  indeed  a  serious 
one,  and  as  an  instance  of  reasoning  from  analogy 
seemed  plausible  enough.  After  more  than  a  year 
Massachusetts  consented,  by  a  bare  majority  of  two 
in  the  House  and  one  in  the  Senate,  reserving  to 
herself  the  right  of  appointing  the  collectors.  The 
bill  was  then  vetoed  by  Governor  Hancock,  though 
one  day  too  late,  and  so  it  was  saved.  But  Rhode 
Island  flatly  refused  her  consent,  and  so  did  Vir 
ginia,  though  Madison  earnestly  pleaded  the  cause 


THE  LEAGUE   OF  FRIENDSHIP.        105 

of  the  public  credit.  For  the  current  expenses  of 
the  government  in  that  same  year  89,000,000  were 
needed.  It  was  calculated  that  14,000,000  might 
be  raised  by  a  loan,  and  the  other  $ 5,000,000  were 
demanded  of  the  states.  At  the  end  of  the  year 
1422,000  had  been  collected,  not  a  cent  of  which 
came  from  Georgia,  the  Carolinas,  or  Delaware. 
Rhode  Island,  which  paid  $38,000,  did  the  best  of 
all  according  to  its  resources.  Of  the  Continental 
taxes  assessed  in  1783,  only  one  fifth  part  had  been 
paid  by  the  middle  of  1785.  And  the  worst  of  it 
was  that  no  one  could  point  to  a  remedy  for  this 
state  of  things,  or  assign  any  probable  end  to  it. 

Under  such  circumstances  the  public  credit  sank 
at  home  as  well  as  abroad.  Foreign  creditors  — 
even  France,  who  had  been  nothing  if  not  generous 
with  her  loans  —  might  be  made  to  wait ;  but  there 
were  creditors  at  home  who,  should  they  prove  ugly, 
could  not  be  so  easily  put  off.  The  disbandment 
of  the  army  in  the  summer  of  1783,  before  the 
British  troops  had  evacuated  New  York,  was  hast 
ened  by  the  impossibility  of  paying  the  soldiers 
and  the  dread  of  what  they  might  do  under  such 
provocation.  Though  peace  had  been  officially 
announced,  Hamilton  and  Livingston  urged  that, 
for  the  sake  of  appearances  if  for  no  other  reason, 
the  army  should  be  kept  together  so  long  as  the 
British  remained  in  New  York,  if  not  until  they 
should  have  surrendered  the  western  Dreadofthe 
frontier  posts.  But  Congress  could  not  army- 
pay  the  army,  and  was  afraid  of  it,  —  and  not  with 
out  some  reason.  Discouraged  at  the  length  of 
time  which  had  passed  since  they  had  received 


106         THE  LEAGUE   OF  FRIENDSHIP. 

money,  the  soldiers  had  begun  to  fear  lest,  now 
that  their  services  were  no  longer  needed,  their 
honest  claims  would  be  set  aside.  Among  the 
officers,  too,  there  was  grave  discontent.  In  the 
spring  of  1778,  after  the  dreadful  winter  at  Valley 
Forge,  several  officers  had  thrown  up  their  com 
missions,  and  others  threatened  to  do  likewise. 
To  avert  the  danger,  Washington  had  urged  Con 
gress  to  promise  half-pay  for  life  to  such  officers 
as  should  serve  to  the  end  of  the  war.  It  was  only 
with  great  difficulty  that  he  succeeded  in  obtaining 
a  promise  of  half-pay  for  seven  years,  and  even 
this  raised  an  outcry  throughout  the  country,  which 
seemed  to  dread  its  natural  defenders  only  less 
than  its  enemies.  In  the  fall  of  1780,  however,  in 
the  general  depression  which  followed  upon  the 
disasters  at  Charleston  and  Camden,  the  collapse 
of  the  paper  money,  and  the  discovery  of  Arnold's 
treason,  there  was  serious  danger  that  the  army 
would  fall  to  pieces.  At  this  critical  moment 
Washington  had  earnestly  appealed  to  Congress, 
and  against  the  strenuous  opposition  of  Samuel 
Adams  had  at  length  extorted  the  promise  of  half- 
pay  for  life.  In  the  spring  of  1782,  seeing  the 
utter  inability  of  Congress  to  discharge  its  pecu 
niary  obligations,  many  officers  began  to  doubt 
whether  the  promise  would  ever  be  kept.  It  had 
been  made  before  the  articles  of  confederation, 
which  required  the  assent  of  nine  states  to  any 
such  measure,  had  been  finally  ratified.  It  was 
well  known  that  nine  states  had  never  been  found 
to  favour  the  measure,  and  it  was  now  feared  that 
it  might  be  repealed  or  repudiated,  so  loud  was  the 


THE  LEAGUE   OF  FRIENDSHIP.        107 

popular  clamour  against  it.  All  this  comes  of  re* 
publican  government,  said  some  of  the  officers ; 
too  many  cooks  spoil  the  broth ;  a  dozen  heads  are 
as  bad  as  no  head ;  you  do  not  know  whose  prom 
ises  to  trust ;  a  monarchy,  with  a  good  king  whom 
all  men  can  trust,  would  extricate  us  from  these 
difficulties.  In  this  mood,  Colonel  Louis  Nicola, 
of  the  Pennsylvania  line,  a  foreigner  by  birth,  ad 
dressed  a  long  and  well-argued  letter  to  Washing 
ton,  setting  forth  the  troubles  of  the  Supp08ed 
time,  and  urging  him  to  come  forward  ^Sg  wash- 
as  a  saviour  of  society,  and  accept  the  forking, 
crown  at  the  hands  of  his  faithful  soldiers.  Nicola 
was  an  aged  man,  of  excellent  character,  and  in 
making  this  suggestion  he  seemed  to  be  acting  as 
spokesman  of  a  certain  clique  or  party  among  the 
officers,  —  how  numerous  is  not  known.  Wash 
ington  instantly  replied  that  Nicola  could  not  have 
found  a  person  to  whom  such  a  scheme  could  be 
more  odious,  and  he  was  at  a  loss  to  conceive  what 
he  had  ever  done  to  have  it  supposed  that  he  could 
for  one  moment  listen  to  a  suggestion  so  fraught 
with  mischief  to  his  country.  Lest  the  affair,  be 
coming  known,  should  enhance  the  popular  distrust 
of  the  army,  Washington  said  nothing  about  it. 
But  as  the  year  went  by,  and  the  outcry  against 
half -pay  continued,  and  Congress  showed  symptoms 
of  a  willingness  to  compromise  the  matter,  the  dis 
content  of  the  army  increased.  Officers  and  sol 
diers  brooded  alike  over  their  wrongs.  "  The  army," 
said  General  Macdougall,  "  is  verging  to  that  state 
which,  we  are  told,  will  make  a  wise  man  mad." 
The  peril  of  the  situation  was  increased  by  the 


108         THE  LEAGUE   OF  FRIENDSHIP. 

well-meant  but  injudicious  whisperings  of  other 
public  creditors,  who  believed  that  if  the  army 
would  only  take  a  firm  stand  and  insist  upon  a 
grant  of  permanent  funds  to  Congress  for  liquidat 
ing  all  public  debts,  the  states  could  probably  be 
prevailed  upon  to  make  such  a  grant.  Eobert 
Morris,  the  able  secretary  of  finance,  held  this 
opinion,  and  did  not  believe  that  the  states  could 
be  brought  to  terms  in  any  other  way.  His  name 
sake  and  assistant,  Gouverneur  Morris,  held  similar 
views,  and  gave  expression  to  them  in  February, 
1783,  in  a  letter  to  General  Greene,  who  was  still 
commanding  in  South  Carolina.  "When  Greene 
received  the  letter,  he  urged  upon  the  legislature 
of  that  state,  in  most  guarded  and  moderate  lan 
guage,  the  paramount  need  of  granting  a  revenue 
to  Congress,  and  hinted  that  the  army  would  not 
be  satisfied  with  anything  less.  The  assembly 
straightway  flew  into  a  rage.  "No  dictation  by  a 
Cromwell !  "  shouted  the  members.  South  Caro 
lina  had  consented  to  the  five  per  cent,  impost,  but 
now  she  revoked  it,  to  show  her  independence,  and 
Greene's  eyes  were  opened  at  once  to  the  danger 
of  the  slightest  appearance  of  military  intervention 
in  civil  affairs. 

At  the  same  time  a  violent  outbreak  in  the  army 
at  Newburgh  was  barely  prevented  by  the  unfail 
ing  tact  of  Washington.  A  rumour  went  about 
the  camp  that  it  was  generally  expected  the  army 
would  not  disband  until  the  question  of  pay  should 
be  settled,  and  that  the  public  creditors  looked  to 
them  to  make  some  such  demonstration  as  would 
overawe  the  delinquent  states.  General  Gates 


THE  LEAGUE   OF  FRIENDSHIP.        109 

had  lately  emerged  from  the  retirement  in  which 
he  had  been  fain  to  hide  himself  after  Camden, 
and  had  rejoined  the  army  where  there  was  now 
such  a  field  for  intrigue.  An  odious  aroma  of  im 
potent  malice  clings  about  his  memory  on  this  last 
occasion  on  which  the  historian  needs  to  notice  him. 
He  plotted  in  secret  with  officers  of  the  staff  and 
others.  One  of  his  staff,  Major  Armstrong,  wrote 
an  anonymous  appeal  to  the  troops,  and  another, 
Colonel  Barber,  caused  it  to  be  circulated  about 
the  camp.  It  named  the  next  day  for  a  meeting 
to  consider  grievances.  Its  language  was  inflam 
matory.  "  My  friends !  "  it  said,  "  after 

J  J  .  The  danger- 

Seven   long   years  your  suffering  cour-  ^r^swburgh 

age  has  conducted  the  United  States  of  March  11, 
America  through  a  doubtful  and  bloody 
war ;  and  peace  returns  to  bless  —  whom  ?  A 
country  willing  to  redress  your  wrongs,  cherish 
your  worth,  and  reward  your  services  ?  Or  is  it 
rather  a  country  that  tramples  upon  your  rights, 
disdains  your  cries,  and  insults  your  distresses? 
...  If  such  be  your  treatment  while  the  swords 
you  wear  are  necessary  for  the  defence  of  America, 
what  have  you  to  expect  when  those  very  swords, 
the  instruments  and  companions  of  your  glory, 
shall  be  taken  from  your  sides,  and  no  mark  of 
military  distinction  left  but  your  wants,  infirmities, 
and  scars  ?  If  you  have  sense  enough  to  discover 
and  spirit  to  oppose  tyranny,  whatever  garb  it 
may  assume,  awake  to  your  situation.  If  the  pres 
ent  moment  be  lost,  your  threats  hereafter  will  be 
as  empty  as  your  entreaties  now.  Appeal  from 
the  justice  to  the  fears  of  government,  and  sus- 


110         THE  LEAGUE   OF  FRIENDSHIP. 

pect  the  man  who  would  advise  to  longer  forbear- 
ance." 

Better  English  has  seldom  been  wasted  in  a 
worse  cause.  Washington,  the  man  who  was  aimed 
at  in  the  last  sentence,  got  hold  of  the  paper  next 
day,  just  in  time,  as  he  said,  "  to  arrest  the  feet 
that  stood  wavering  on  a  precipice,"  The  memory 
of  the  revolt  of  the  Pennsylvania  line,  which  had 
so  alarmed  the  people  in  1781,  was  still  fresh  in 
men's  minds  ;  and  here  was  an  invitation  to  more 
wholesale  mutiny,  which  could  hardly  fail  to  end 
in  bloodshed,  and  might  precipitate  the  perplexed 
and  embarrassed  country  into  civil  war.  Wash 
ington  issued  a  general  order,  recognizing  the  exisfc 
ence  of  the  manifesto,  but  overruling  it  so  far  as 
to  appoint  the  meeting  for  a  later  day,  with  the 
senior  major-general,  who  happened  to  be  Gates, 
to  preside.  This  order,  which  neither  discipline 
nor  courtesy  could  disregard,  in  a  measure  tied 
Gates's  hands,  while  it  gave  Washington  time  to 
ascertain  the  extent  of  the  disaffection.  On  the 
appointed  day  he  suddenly  came  into  the  meeting, 
and  amid  profoundest  silence  broke  forth  in  a 
most  eloquent  and  touching  speech.  Sympathizing 
keenly  with  the  sufferings  of  his  hearers,  and  fully 
admitting  their  claims,  he  appealed  to  their  better 
feelings,  and  reminded  them  of  the  terrible  diffi 
culties  under  which  Congress  laboured,  and  of  the 
folly  of  putting  themselves  in  the  wrong.  He  still 
counselled  forbearance  as  the  greatest  of  victories, 
and  with  consummate  skill  he  characterized  the 
anonymous  appeal  as  undoubtedly  the  work  of  some 
crafty  emissary  of  the  British,  eager  to  disgrace 


THE  LEAGUE   OF  FRIENDSHIP.        Ill 

the  army  which  they  had  not  been  able  to  vanquish. 
All  were  hushed  by  that  majestic  presence  and 
those  solemn  tones.  The  knowledge  that  he  had 
refused  all  pay,  while  enduring  more  than  any  other 
man  in  the  room,  gave  added  weight  to  every  word. 
In  proof  of  the  good  faith  of  Congress  he  began 
reading  a  letter  from  one  of  the  members,  when, 
finding  his  sight  dim,  he  paused  and  took  from  his 
pocket  the  new  pair  of  spectacles  which  the  astron 
omer  David  Eittenhouse  had  just  sent  him.  He 
had  never  worn  spectacles  in  public,  and  as  he  put 
them  on  he  said,  in  his  simple  manner  and  with 
his  pleasant  smile,  "  I  have  grown  gray  in  your 
service,  and  now  find  myself  growing  blind." 
While  all  hearts  were  softened  he  went  on  reading 
the  letter,  and  then  withdrew,  leaving  the  meeting 
to  its  deliberations.  There  was  a  sudden  and 
mighty  revulsion  of  feeling.  A  motion  was  re 
ported  declaring  "  unshaken  confidence  in  the  jus 
tice  of  Congress ;  "  and  it  was  added  that  "  the 
officers  of  the  American  army  view  with  abhorrence 
and  reject  with  disdain  the  infamous  proposals  con 
tained  in  a  late  anonymous  address  to  them."  The 
crestfallen  Gates,  as  chairman,  had  nothing  to  do 
but  put  the  question  and  report  it  carried  unani 
mously  ;  for  if  any  still  remained  obdurate  they  no 
longer  dared  to  show  it.  Washington  immediately 
set  forth  the  urgency  of  the  case  in  an  earnest 
letter  to  Congress,  and  one  week  later  the  matter 
was  settled  by  an  act  commuting  half-pay  for  life 
into  a  gross  sum  equal  to  five  years'  full  pay,  to  be 
discharged  at  once  by  certificates  bearing  interest 
at  six  per  cent.  Such  poor  paper  was  all  that 


112        THE  LEAGUE   OF  FRIENDSHIP. 

Congress  had  to  pay  with,  but  it  was  all  ultimately 
redeemed  ;  and  while  the  commutation  was  advan 
tageous  to  the  government,  it  was  at  the  same  time 
greatly  for  the  interest  of  the  officers,  while  they 
were  looking  out  for  new  means  of  livelihood,  to 
have  their  claims  adjusted  at  once,  and  to  receive 
something  which  could  do  duty  as  a  respectable 
sum  of  money. 

Nothing,  however,  could  prevent  the  story  of  the 
Newburgh  affair  from  being  published  all  over  the 
country,  and  it  greatly  added  to  the  distrust  with 
which  the  army  was  regarded  on  general  principles. 
What  might  have  happened  was  forcibly  suggested 
by  a  miserable  occurrence  in  June,  about  two 
months  after  the  disbanding  of  the  army  had 
begun.  Some  eighty  soldiers  of  the  Pennsylvania 
line,  mutinous  from  discomfort  and  want  of  pay, 
Con  ress  broke  from  their  camp  at  Lancaster  and 
phSefip°hTa  marched  down  to  Philadelphia,  led  by 
soiS^june  a  sergeant  or  two.  They  drew  up  in 
21, 1783.  }me  before  the  state  house,  where  Con 
gress  was  assembled,  and  after  passing  the  grog 
began  throwing  stones  and  pointing  their  muskets 
at  the  windows.  They  demanded  pay,  and  threat 
ened,  if  it  were  not  forthcoming,  to  seize  the  mem 
bers  of  Congress  and  hold  them  as  hostages,  or  else 
to  break  into  the  bank  where  the  federal  deposits 
were  kept.  The  executive  council  of  Pennsylvania 
sat  in  the  same  building,  and  so  the  federal  gov 
ernment  appealed  to  the  state  government  for  pro 
tection.  The  appeal  was  fruitless.  President 
Dickinson  had  a  few  state  militia  at  his  disposal, 
but  did  not  dare  to  summon  them,  for  fear  they 


THE  LEAGUE   OF  FRIENDSHIP.        113 

should  side  with  the  rioters.  The  city  government 
was  equally  listless,  and  the  townsfolk  went  their 
ways  as  if  it  were  none  of  their  business  ;  and  so 
Congress  fled  across  the  river  and  on  to  Princeton, 
where  the  college  afforded  it  shelter.  Thus  in  a 
city  of  thirty-two  thousand  inhabitants,  the  largest 
city  in  the  country,  the  government  of  the  United 
States,  the  body  which  had  just  completed  a  treaty 
browbeating  England  and  France,  was  ignomin- 
iously  turned  out-of-doors  by  a  handful  of  drunken 
mutineers.  The  affair  was  laughed  at  by  many, 
but  sensible  men  keenly  felt  the  disgrace,  and  asked 
what  would  be  thought  in  Europe  of  a  government 
which  could  not  even  command  the  services  of  the 
police.  The  army  became  more  unpopular  than 
ever,  and  during  the  summer  and  fall  many  town- 
meetings  were  held  in  New  England,  condemning 
the  Commutation  Act.  Are  we  not  poor  enough 
Already,  cried  the  farmers,  that  we  must  be  taxed 
to  support  in  idle  luxury  a  riotous  rabble  of  sol 
diery,  or  create  an  aristocracy  of  men  with  gold 
lace  and  epaulets,  who  will  presently  plot  against 
our  liberties  ?  The  Massachusetts  legislature  pro 
tested  ;  the  people  of  Connecticut  meditated  resist 
ance.  A  convention  was  held  at  Middletown  iu 
December,  at  which  two  thirds  of  the  towns  in  the 
state  were  represented,  and  the  best  method  of 
overruling  Congress  was  discussed.  Much  high- 
flown  eloquence  was  wasted,  but  the  convention 
broke  up  without  deciding  upon  any  course  of 
action.  The  matter  had  become  so  serious  that 
wise  men  changed  their  minds,  and  disapproved  of 
proceedings  calculated  to  tbrow  Congress  into  con* 


114          THE  LEAGUE   OF  FRIENDSHIP. 

tempt.  Samuel  Adams,  who  had  almost  violently 
opposed  the  grant  of  half-pay  and  had  been  dissat 
isfied  with  the  Commutation  Act,  now  came  com 
pletely  over  to  the  other  side.  Whatever  might 
be  thought  of  the  policy  of  the  measures,  he  said, 
Congress  had  an  undoubted  right  to  adopt  them. 
The  army  had  been  necessary  for  the  defence  of 
our  liberties,  and  the  public  faith  had  been  pledged 
to  the  payment  of  the  soldiers.  States  were  as 
much  bound  as  individuals  to  fulfil  their  engage 
ments,  and  did  not  the  sacred  Scriptures  say  of  an 
honest  man  that,  though  he  sweareth  to  his  own 
hart,  he  changefch  not?  Such  plain  truths  pre 
vailed  in  the  Boston  town-meeting,  which  voted 
that  "  the  commutation  is  wisely  blended  with  the 
national  debt."  The  agitation  in  New  England 
presently  came  to  an  end,  and  in  this  matter  the 
course  of  Congress  was  upheld. 

In  order  fully  to  understand  this  extravagant 
distrust  of  the  army,  we  have  to  take  into  account 
another  incident  of  the  summer  of  1783,  which 
gave  rise  to  a  discussion  that  sent  its  reverberation 
all  over  the  civilized  world.  Men  of  the  present 
generation  who  in  childhood  rummaged  in  their 
grandmothers'  cosy  garrets  cannot  fail  to  have 
come  across  scores  of  musty  and  worm-eaten  pam 
phlets,  their  yellow  pages  crowded  with  italics  and 
exclamation  points,  inveighing  in  passionate  lan 
guage  against  the  wicked  and  dangerous  society 
of  the  Cincinnati.  Just  before  the  army  was  dis 
banded,  the  officers,  at  the  suggestion  of  Genera] 
Knox,  formed  themselves  into  a  secret  society,  fop 
the  purpose  of  keeping  up  their  friendly  inter- 


THE  LEAGUE   OF  FRIENDSHIP.        115 

course  and  cherishing  the  heroic- memories  of  the 
struggle  in  which  they  had  taken  part.  With  the 
fondness  for  classical  analogies  which  characterized 
that  time,  they  likened  themselves  to  order  of  the 
Cincinnatus,  who  was  taken  from  the  Cincinnati- 
plough  to  lead  an  army,  and  returned  to  his  quiet 
farm  so  soon  as  his  warlike  duties  were  over. 
They  were  modern  Cincinnati.  A  constitution 
and  by-laws  were  established  for  the  order,  and 
Washington  was  unanimously  chosen  to  be  its 
president.  Its  branches  in  the  several  states  were 
to  hold  meetings  each  Fourth  of  July,  and  there 
was  to  be  a  general  meeting  of  the  whole  society 
every  year  in  the  month  of  May.  French  officers 
who  had  taken  part  in  the  war  were  admitted  to 
membership,  and  the  order  was  to  be  perpetuated 
by  descent  through  the  eldest  male  representatives 
of  the  families  of  the  members.  It  was  further 
provided  that  a  limited  membership  should  from 
time  to  time  be  granted,  as  a  distinguished  honour, 
to  able  and  worthy  citizens,  without  regard  to  the 
memories  of  the  war.  A  golden  American  eagle 
attached  to  a  blue  ribbon  edged  with  white  was 
the  sacred  badge  of  the  order ;  and  to  this  emblem 
especial  favour  was  shown  at  the  French  court, 
where  the  insignia  of  foreign  states  were  generally, 
it  is  said,  regarded  with  jealousy.  No  political 
purpose  was  to  be  subserved  by  this  order  of  the 
Cincinnati,  save  in  so  far  as  the  members  pledged 
to  one  another  their  determination  to  promote  and 
cherish  the  union  between  the  states.  In  its  main 
intent  the  society  was  to  be  a  kind  of  masonic 
brotherhood,  charged  with  the  duty  of  aiding  tha 


116          THE  LEAGUE   OF  FRIENDSHIP. 

widows  and  the  orphan  children  of  its  members  in 
time  of  need.  Innocent  as  all  this  was,  however, 
the  news  of  the  establishment  of  such  a  society 
was  greeted  with  a  howl  of  indignation  all  over 
the  country.  It  was  thought  that  its  founders 
were  inspired  by  a  deep-laid  political  scheme  for 
centralizing  the  government  and  setting  up  a  he 
reditary  aristocracy.  The  press  teeined  with  invec 
tive  and  ridicule,  and  the  feeling  thus  expressed 
by  the  penny-a-liners  was  shared  by  able  men  ac 
customed  to  weigh  their  words.  Franklin  dealt 
with  it  in  a  spirit  of  banter,  and  John  Adams  in  a 
spirit  of  abhorrence  ;  while  Samuel  Adams  pointed 
out  the  dangers  inherent  in  the  principle  of  hered 
itary  transmission  of  honours,  and  in  the  admission 
of  foreigners  into  a  secret  association  possessed  of 
political  influence  in  America.  What  I  cried  the 
men  of  Massachusetts.  Have  we  thrown  over 
board  the  effete  institutions  of  Europe,  only  to 
have  them  straightway  introduced  among  us  again, 
after  this  plausible  and  surreptitious  fashion  ?  At 
Cambridge  it  was  thought  that  the  general  senti 
ment  of  the  university  was  in  favour  of  suppress 
ing  the  order  by  act  of  legislature.  One  of  the 
members,  who  was  a  candidate  for  senator  in  the 
spring  of  1784,  found  it  necessary  to  resign  in  or 
der  to  save  his  chances  for  election.  Rhode  Island 
proposed  to  disfranchise  such  of  her  citizens  as 
belonged  to  the  order,  albeit  her  most  eminent  citi 
zen,  Nathanael  Greene,  was  one  of  them.  .ZEdaiius 
Burke,  a  judge  of  the  Supreme  Court  of  South 
Carolina,  wrote  a  violent  pamphlet  against  the 
society  of  the  Cincinnati  under  the  pseudonym  of 


THE  LEAGUE   OF  FRIENDSHIP.        117 

fJassius,  the  slayer  of  tyrants ;  and  this  diatribe, 
translated  and  amplified  by  Mirabeau,  awakened 
dull  echoes  among  readers  of  Rousseau  and  haters 
of  privilege  in  all  parts  of  Europe.  A  swarm 
of  brochures  in  rejoinder  and  rebutter  issued  from 
the  press,  and  the  nineteenth  century  had  come  in 
before  the  controversy  was  quite  forgotten. 

It  is  easy  for  us  now  to  smile  at  this  outcry 
against  the  Cincinnati  as  much  ado  about  nothing, 
seeing  as  we  do  that  in  the  absence  of  territorial 
jurisdiction  or  especial  political  privileges  an  order 
of  nobility  cannot  be  created  by  the  mere  inherit 
ance  of  empty  titles  or  badges.  For  example, 
since  the  great  revolution  which  swept  away  the 
landlordship  and  fiscal  exemptions  of  the  French 
nobility,  a  marquisate  or  a  dukedom  in  France  is 
of  scarcely  more  political  importance  than  a  doc 
torate  of  laws  in  a  New  England  university.  Men 
were  nevertheless  not  to  be  blamed  in  1783  for 
their  hostility  toward  that  ghost  of  the  hereditary 
principle  which  the  Cincinnati  sought  to  introduce. 
In  a  free  industrial  society  like  that  of  America 
it  had  no  proper  place  or  meaning ;  and  the  at 
tempt  to  set  up  such  a  form  might  well  have  been 
cited  in  illustration  of  the  partial  reversion  toward 
militancy  which  eight  years  of  warfare  had  effected. 
The  absurdity  of  the  situation  was  quickly  realized 
by  Washington,  and  he  prevailed  upon  the  society, 
in  its  first  annual  meeting  of  May,  1784,  to  aban 
don  the  principle  of  hereditary  membership.  The 
agitation  was  thus  allayed,  and  in  the  presence  of 
graver  questions  the  much-dreaded  brotherhood 
gradually  ceased  to  occupy  popular  attention. 


118          THE  LEAGUE   OF  FRIENDSHIP. 

The  opposition  to  the  Cincinnati  is  not  fully  ex- 
plained  unless  we  consider  it  in  connection  with 
Nicola's  letter,  the  Newburgh  address,  and  the 
flight  of  Congress  to  Princeton.  The  members  of 
the  Cincinnati  were  pledged  to  do  whatever  they 
could  to  promote  the  union  between  the  states ; 
the  object  of  the  Newburgh  address  was  to  enlist  the 
army  in  behalf  of  the  public  creditors,  and  in  some 
vaguely-imagined  fashion  to  force  a  stronger  govern 
ment  upon  the  country  ;  the  letter  of  Nicola  shows 
that  at  least  some  of  the  officers  had  harboured  the 
notion  of  a  monarchy  ;  and  the  weakness  of  Con 
gress  had  been  revealed  in  the  most  startling  man 
ner  by  its  flight  before  a  squad  of  mutineers.  It 
is  one  of  the  lessons  of  history  that,  in  the  virtual 
absence  of  a  central  government  for  which  a  need 
is  felt,  the  want  is  apt  to  be  supplied  by  the  strong 
est  organization  in  the  country,  whatever  that  may 
happen  to  be.  It  was  in  this  way  that  the  French 
army,  a  few  years  later,  got  control  of  the  govern 
ment  of  France  and  made  its  general  emperor.  In 
1783,  if  the  impotence  of  Congress  were  to  be  as 
explicitly  acknowledged  as  it  was  implicitly  felt, 
the  only  national  organization  left  in  the  country 
was  the  army,  and  when  this  was  disbanded  it 
seemed  nevertheless  to  prolong  its  life  under  a  new 
and  dangerous  form  in  the  secret  brotherhood  of 
the  Cincinnati.  The  cession  of  western  lands  to 
the  confederacy  was,  moreover,  completed  at  about 
this  time,  and  one  of  the  uses  to  which  the  new 
territory  was  to  be  put  was  the  payment  of  claims 
due  to  the  soldiers.  It  was  distinctly  feared,  as  is 
shown  in  a  letter  from  Samuel  Adams  to  Elbridge 


THE  LEAGUE   OF  FRIENDSHIP.        119 

Gerry,  that  the  members  of  the  Cincinnati  would 
acquire  large  tracts  of  western  land  under  this 
arrangement,  and,  importing  peasants  from  Ger 
many,  would  grant  farms  to  them  on  terms  of  mili 
tary  service  and  fealty,  thus  introducing  into 
America  the  feudal  system.  In  order  to  forestall 
any  such  movement,  it  was  provided  by  Congress 
that  in  any  new  states  formed  out  of  the  western 
territory  no  person  holding  a  hereditary  title  should 
be  admitted  to  citizenship. 

From  the  weakness  of  Congress  as  illustrated  in 
its  inability  to  raise  money  to  pay  the  public  debt 
and  meet  the  current  expenses  of  government,  and 
from  the  popular  dread  of  military  usurpation 
which  went  along  with  the  uneasy  consciousness  of 
that  weakness,  we  have  now  to  turn  to  another 
group  of  affairs  in  which  the  same  point  is  still 
further  illustrated  and  emphasized.  We  have  seen 
how  the  commissioners  of  the  United  States  in 
Paris  had  succeeded  in  making  a  treaty  of  peace 
with  Great  Britain  on  extremely  favourable  terms. 
So  unpopular  was  the  treaty  in  England,  on  ac 
count  of  the  great  concessions  made  to  the  Ameri 
cans,  that,  as  we  have  seen,  the  fall  of  Lord  Shel- 
burne's  ministry  was  occasioned  thereby. 

17  *       Congress  finds 

As  an  offset  to  these  liberal  concessions, 


carry  out  the 

of  which  the  most  considerable  was  the  provisions  of 

the  treaty. 

acknowledgment  of  the  American  claim 
to  the  northwestern  territory,  our  confederate  gov 
ernment  was  pledged  to  do  all  in  its  power  to  effect 
certain  concessions  which  were  demanded  by  Eng 
land.  That  the  American  loyalists,  whose  property 
had  been  confiscated  by  various  state  governments, 


120          THE  LEAGUE   OF  FRIENDSHIP. 

should  be  indemnified  for  their  losses  was  a  claim 
which,  whatever  Americans  might  think  of  it,  Eng 
land  felt  bound  in  honour  to  urge.  That  private 
debts,  due  from  American  to  British  creditors, 
should  be  faithfully  discharged  was  the  plainest 
dictate  of  common  honesty.  Congress,  as  we  have 
seen,  was  bound  by  the  treaty  to  recommend  to  the 
several  states  to  desist  from  the  persecution  of 
Tories,  and  to  give  them  an  opportunity  of  recover 
ing  their  estates ;  and  it  had  been  further  agreed 
that  all  private  debts  should  be  discharged  at  their 
full  value  in  sterling  money.  It  now  turned  out 
that  Congress  was  powerless  to  carry  out  the  pro 
visions  of  the  treaty  upon  either  of  these  points. 
The  recommendations  concerning  the  Tories  were 
greeted  with  a  storm  of  popular  indignation.  Since 
the  beginning  of  the  war  these  unfortunate  persons 
Persecution  of  na(l  been  treated  with  severity  both  by 
the  legislatures  and  by  the  people.  Many 
had  been  banished ;  others  had  fled  the  country, 
and  against  these  refugees  various  harsh  laws  had 
been  enacted.  Their  estates  had  been  confiscated, 
and  their  return  prohibited  under  penalty  of  im 
prisonment  or  death.  Many  others,  who  had  re 
mained  in  the  country,  were  objects  of  suspicion 
and  dislike  in  states  where  they  had  not,  as  in  New 
York  and  the  Carolinas,  openly  aided  the  enemy  ot 
taken  part  in  Indian  atrocities.  Now,  on  the  con 
clusion  of  peace,  in  utter  disregard  of  Congress, 
fresh  measures  of  vengeance  were  taken  against 
these  "  fawning  spaniels,"  as  they  were  called,  these 
"  tools  and  minions  of  Britain."  An  article  in  the 
44  Massachusetts  Chronicle  "  expressed  the  common 


THE  LEAGUE  OF  FRIENDSHIP.        121 

feeling :  "  As  Hannibal  swore  never  to  be  at  peace 
with  the  Romans,  so  let  every  Whig  swear,  by 
his  abhorrence  of  slavery,  by  liberty  and  religion, 
by  the  shades  of  departed  friends  who  have  fallen 
in  battle,  by  the  ghosts  of  those  of  our  brethren 
who  have  been  destroyed  on  board  of  prison-ships 
and  in  loathsome  dungeons,  never  to  be  at  peace 
with  those  fiends  the  refugees,  whose  thefts,  mur 
ders,  and  treasons  have  filled  the  cup  of  woe." 
Tons  of  pamphlets,  issued  under  the  customary 
Latin  pseudonyms,  were  filled  with  this  truculent 
bombast ;  and  like  sentiments  were  thundered  from 
the  pulpit  by  men  who  had  quite  forgotten  for  the 
moment  their  duty  of  preaching  reconciliation  and 
forgiveness  of  injuries.  Why  should  not  these 
wretches,  it  was  sarcastically  asked,  be  driven  at 
once  from  the  country  ?  Of  course  they  could  not 
desire  to  live  under  a  free  government  which  they 
had  been  at  such  pains  to  destroy.  Let  them  go 
forthwith  to  his  majesty's  dominions,  and  live  under 
the  government  they  preferred.  It  would  never 
do  to  let  them  stay  here,  to  plot  treason  at  their 
leisure  ;  in  a  few  years  they  would  get  control  of 
all  the  states,  and  either  hand  them  over  to  Great 
Britain  again,  or  set  up  a  Tory  despotism  on  Ameri 
can  soil.  Such  was  the  rubbish  that  passed  current 
as  argument  with  the  majority  of  the  people.  A 
small  party  of  moderate  Whigs  saw  its  absurdity, 
and  urged  that  the  Tories  had  much  better  remain 
at  home,  where  they  had  lost  all  political  influence, 
than  go  and  found  unfriendly  colonies  to  the  north 
ward.  The  moderate  Whigs  were  in  favour  of 
heeding  the  recommendation  of  Congress,  and  actx 


122         THE  LEAGUE   OF  FRIENDSHIP. 

ing  in  accordance  with  the  spirit  of  the  treaty  ;  and 
these  humane  and  sensible  views  were  shared  by 
Gadsden  and  Marion  in  South  Carolina,  by  Theo 
dore  Sedgwick  in  Massachusetts,  and  by  Greene, 
Hamilton,  and  Jay.  But  any  man  who  held  such 
opinions,  no  matter  how  conspicuous  his  services 
had  been,  ran  the  risk  of  being  accused  of  Tory 
sympathies.  "  Time-serving  Whigs  "  and  "  trim 
mers  "  were  the  strangely  inappropriate  epithets 
hurled  at  men  who,  had  they  been  in  the  slightest 
degree  time-servers,  would  have  shrunk  from  the 
thankless  task  of  upholding  good  sense  and  human 
ity  in  the  teeth  of  popular  prejudice. 

In  none  of  the  states  did  the  loyalists  receive 
severer  treatment  than  in  New  York,  and  for  obvi 
ous  reasons.  Throughout  the  war  the  frontier  had 
been  the  scene  of  atrocities  such  as  no  other  state, 
save  perhaps  South  Carolina,  had  witnessed. 
Cherry  Valley  and  Minisink  were  names  of  horror 
not  easily  forgotten,  and  the  fate  of  Lieutenant 
Boyd  and  countless  other  victims  called  loudly  for 
vengeance.  The  sins  of  the  Butlers  and  their 
bloodthirsty  followers  were  visited  in  robbery  and 
insult  upon  unoffending  men,  who  were  like  them 
in  nothing  but  in  being  labelled  with  the  epithet 
"  Tory."  During  the  seven  years  that  the -city  of 
New  York  had  been  occupied  by  the  British  army, 
many  of  these  loyalists  had  found  shelter  there. 
The  Whig  citizens,  on  the  other  hand,  had  been 
driven  off  the  island,  to  shift  as  best  they  might  in 
New  Jersey,  while  their  comfortable  homes  were 
seized  and  assigned  by  military  orders  to  .these 
very  Tories.  For  seven  years  the  refugee  Whigs 


THE  LEAGUE   OF  FRIENDSHIP.        123 

from  across  the  Hudson  had  looked  upon  New 
York  with  feelings  like  those  with  which  the  me 
diaeval  exile  from  Florence  or  Pisa  was  wont  to 
regard  his  native  city.  They  saw  in  it  the  home  of 
enemies  who  had  robbed  them,  the  prison-ho"^  «f 
gallant  friends  penned  up  to  Ji«  ot  wanton  ill-usage 
in  foul  ships'  holds  in  the  harbour.  When  at  last 
the  king's  troops  left  the  city,  it  was  felt  that  a 
great  day  of  reckoning  had  arrived.  In  September, 
1783,  two  months  before  the  evacuation,  more  than 
twelve  thousand  men,  women,  and  children  em 
barked  for  the  Bahamas  or  for  Nova  Scotia,  rather 
than  stay  and  face  the  troubles  that  were  coming. 
Many  of  these  were  refined  and  cultivated  per 
sons,  and  not  all  had  been  actively  hostile  to  the 
American  cause  ;  many  had  simply  accepted  British 
protection.  Against  those  who  remained  in  the 
city  the  returning  Whigs  now  proceeded  with  great 
severity.  The  violent  party  was  dominant  in  the 
legislature,  and  George  Clinton,  the  governor,  put 
himself  conspicuously  at  its  head.  A  bill  was 
passed  disfranchising  all  such  persons  as  had  vol 
untarily  stayed  in  neighbourhoods  occupied  by  the 
British  troops ;  their  offence  was  called  misprision 
of  treason.  But  the  council  vetoed  this  bill  as  too 
wholesale  in  its  operation,  for  it  would  have  left 
some  districts  without  voters  enough  to  hold  an 
election.  An  " iron-clad  oath"  was  adopted  in 
stead,  and  no  one  was  allowed  to  vote  unless  he 
could  swear  that  he  had  never  in  anywise  Th  Tr 
abetted  the  enemy.  It  was  voted  that  y^Jf  JS 
no  Tory  who  had  left  the  state  should 
be  permitted  to  return;  and  a  bill  was  passed 


124          THE  LEAGUE  OF  FRIENDSHIP. 

known  as  the  Trespass  Act,  whereby  all  persons 
who  had  quit  their  homes  by  reason  of  the  enemy's 
presence  might  recover  damages  in  an  action  of 
trespass  against  such  persons  as  had  since  taken 
possession  of  the  premises.  Defendants  in  such 
cases  were  expressl/  barred  from  pleading  a  mili 
tary  order  in  justification  of  their  possession.  As 
there  was  scarcely  a  building  on  the  island  of  New 
York  that  had  not  thus  changed  hands  during  the 
British  occupation,  it  was  easy  to  foresee  what  con 
fusion  must  ensue.  Everybody  whose  house  had 
once  been,  for  ever  so  few  days,  in  the  hands  of  a 
lory  now  rushed  into  court  with  his  action  of  tres 
pass.  Damages  were  rated  at  most  exorbitant 
figures,  and  it  became  clear  that  the  misdeeds  of 
the  enemy  were  about  to  be  made  the  excuse  for  a 
carnival  of  spoliation,  when  all  at  once  the  test  case 
of  Rutgers  v.  Waddington  brought  upon  the  scene 
a  sturdy  defender  of  order,  an  advocate  who  was 
soon  to  become  one  of  the  foremost  personages  in 
American  history. 

Of  all  the  young  men  of  that  day,  save  perhaps 
William  Pitt,  the  most  precocious  was  Alexander 
Hamilton.  He  had  already  given  promise  of  a 
great  career  before  the  breaking  out  of  the  war, 

Alexander  ^e  was  k°rn  on  tne  island  of  Nevis,  jn 
Hamilton.  t^e  ^egt  in(jies,  jn  1757.  His  father 

belonged  to  that  famous  Scottish  clan  from  which 
have  come  one  of  the  most  learned  metaphysicians 
and  one  of  the  most  original  mathematicians  of 
modern  times.  His  mother  was  a  French  lady,  of 
Huguenot  descent,  and  biographers  have  been  fond 
of  tracing  in  his  character  the  various  qualities  of 


THE  LEAGUE   OF  FRIENDSHIP.        125 

his  parents.  To  the  shrewdness  and  persistence, 
the  administrative  ability,  and  the  taste  for  ab 
stract  reasoning  which  we  are  wont  to  find  asso 
ciated  in  the  highest  type  of  Scottish  mind  he 
joined  a  truly  French  vivacity  and  grace.  His 
earnestness,  sincerity,  and  moral  courage  were 
characteristic  alike  of  Puritan  and  of  Huguenot. 
In  the  course  of  his  short  life  he  exhibited  a  re 
markable  many-sidedness.  So  great  was  his  genius 
for  organization  that  in  many  essential  respects 
the  American  government  is  moving  to-day  along 
the  lines  which  he  was  the  first  to  mark  out. 
As  an  economist  he  shared  to  some  extent  in  the 
shortcomings  of  the  age  which  preceded  Adam 
Smith,  but  in  the  special  department  of  finance  he 
has  been  equalled  by  no  other  American  statesman 
save  Albert  Gallatin.  He  was  a  splendid  orator- 
and  brilliant  writer,  an  excellent  lawyer,  and  a 
clear-headed  and  industrious  student  of  political 
history.  He  was  also  eminent  as  a  political  leader, 
although  he  lacked  faith  in  democratic  government, 
and  a  generous  impatience  of  temperament  some 
times  led  him  to  prefer  short  and  arbitrary  by 
paths  toward  desirable  ends,  which  can  never  be 
securely  reached  save  along  the  broad  but  steep 
and  arduous  road  of  popular  conviction.  But  with 
all  Hamilton's  splendid  qualities,  nothing  about 
him  is  so  remarkable  as  the  early  age  at  which 
these  were  developed.  At  the  age  of  fifteen  a  bril 
liant  newspaper  article  brought  him  into  such  re 
pute  in  the  little  island  of  Nevis  that  he  was  sent 
to  New  York  to  avail  himself  of  the  best  advan 
tages  afforded  by  the  King's  College,  now  known 


126          THE  LEAGUE   OF  FRIENDSHIP. 

us  Columbia.  He  had  at  first  no  definite  intention 
of  becoming  an  American  citizen,  but  the  thrilling 
events  of  the  time  appealed  strongly  to  the  earnest 
heart  and  powerful  intelligence  of  this  wonderful 
boy.  At  a  gathering  of  the  people  of  New  York 
in  July,  1774,  his  generous  blood  warmed,  till  a 
resistless  impulse  brought  him  on  his  feet  to  speak 
to  the  assembled  multitude.  It  was  no  company 
of  half -drunken  idlers  that  thronged  about  him,  but 
an  assemblage  of  grave  and  responsible  citizens, 
who  looked  with  some  astonishment  upon  this  boy 
of  seventeen  years,  short  and  slight  in  stature,  yet 
erect  and  Ca3sar-like  in  bearing,  with  firm  set 
mouth  and  great,  dark,  earnest  eyes.  His  eloquent 
speech,  full  of  sense  and  without  a  syllable  of  bom 
bast,  held  his  hearers  entranced,  and  from  that  day 
Alexander  Hamilton  was  a  marked  man.  He  be 
gan  publishing  anonymous  pamphlets,  which  at 
first  were  attributed  by  some  to  Jay,  and  by  others 
to  Livingston.  When  their  authorship  was  dis 
covered,  the  loyalist,  party  tried  in  vain  to  buy  off 
the  formidable  youth.  He  kept  up  the  pamphlet- 
war,  in  the  course  of  which  he  wofully  defeated 
Dr.  Cooper,  the  Tory  president  of  the  college ;  but 
shortly  afterward  he  defended  the  doctor's  house 
against  an  angry  mob,  until  that  unpopular  gentle 
man  had  succeeded  in  making  his  escape  to  a  Brit 
ish  ship.  Hamilton  served  in  the  army  throughout 
the  war,  for  the  most  part  as  aid  and  secretary  to 
Washington;  but  in  1781  he  was  a  colonel  in  the 
line,  and  stormed  a  redoubt  at  York  town  with 
distinguished  skill  and  bravery.  He  married  a 
daughter  of  Philip  Schuyler,  began  the  practice  of 


THE  LEAGUE   OF  FRIENDSHIP.        127 

law,  and  in  1782,  at  the  age  of  twenty-five,  was 
chosen  a  delegate  to  Congress. 

In  1784,  when  the  Trespass  Act  threw  New  York 
into  confusion,  Hamilton  had  come  to  be  regarded 
as  one  of  the  most  powerful  advocates  in  the  coun 
try.  In  the  test  case  which  now  came  before  the 
courts  he  played  a  part  of  consummate  boldness 
and  heroism.  Elizabeth  Rutgers  was  a  widow, 
who  had  fled  from  New  York  after  its  capture  by 
General  Howe.  Her  confiscated  estate  had  passed 
into  the  hands  of  Joshua  Waddington,  a  rich  Tory 
merchant,  and  she  now  brought  suit  un 
der  the  Trespass  Act  for  its  recovery.  Rutgers «. 
It  was  a  case  in  which  popular  sympathy 
was  naturally  and  strongly  enlisted  in  behalf  of  the 
poor  widow.  That  she  should  have  been  turned 
out  of  house  and  home  was  one  of  the  many  gross 
instances  of  wickedness  wrought  by  the  war.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  disturbance  wrought  by  the 
enforcement  of  the  Trespass  Act  was  already  creat 
ing  fresh  wrongs  much  faster  than  it  was  righting 
old  ones ;  and  it  is  for  such  reasons  as  this  that 
both  in  the  common  law  and  in  the  law  of  nations 
the  principle  has  been  firmly  established  that  "  the 
fruits  of  immovables  belong  to  the  captor  as  long 
as  he  remains  in  actual  possession  of  them."  The 
Trespass  Act  contravened  this  principle,  and  it 
also  contravened  the  treaty.  It  moreover  placed 
the  state  of  New  York  in  an  attitude  of  defiance 
toward  Congress,  which  had  made  the  treaty  and 
expressly  urged  upon  the  states  to  suspend  the 
legislation  against  the  Tories.  On  large  grounds 
of  public  policy,  therefore,  the  Trespass  Act  de- 


128          THE  LEAGUE  OF  FRIENDSHIP. 

served  to  be  set  aside  by  the  courts,  and  when 
Hamilton  was  asked  to  serve  as  counsel  for  the 
defendant  he  accepted  the  odious  task  without 
hesitation.  There  can  be  no  better  proof  of  his 
forensic  ability  than  his  winning  a  verdict,  in  such 
a  case  as  this,  from  a  hostile  court  that  was  largely 
influenced  by  the  popular  excitement.  The  de 
cision  nullified  the  Trespass  Act,  and  forthwith 
mass  meetings  of  the  people  and  an  extra  session 
of  the  legislature  condemned  this  action  of  the 
court.  Hamilton  was  roundly  abused,  and  his 
conduct  was  attributed  to  unworthy  motives.  But 
he  faced  the  people  as  boldly  as  he  had  faced  the 
court,  and  published  a  letter,  under  the  signature 
of  Phocion,  setting  forth  in  the  clearest  light  the 
fa  justice  and  impolicy  of  extreme  measures  against 
the  Tories.  The  popular  wrath  and  disgust  at 
Hamilton's  course  found  expression  in  a  letter 
from  one  Isaac  Ledyard,  a  hot-headed  pot-house 
politician,  who  signed  himself  Mentor.  A  war  of 
pamphlets  ensued  between  Mentor  and  Phocion.  It 
was  genius  pitted  against  dulness,  reason  against 
passion;  and  reason  wielded  by  genius  won  the 
day.  The  more  intelligent  and  respectable  citizens 
reluctantly  admitted  that  Hamilton's  arguments 
were  unanswerable.  A  club  of  boon  companions, 
to  which  Ledyard  belonged,  made  the  same  admis 
sion  by  the  peculiar  manner  in  which  it  proposed 
to  silence  him.  It  was  gravely  proposed  that  the 
members  of  the  club  should  pledge  themselves  one 
after  another  to  challenge  Hamilton  to  mortal  com. 
bat,  until  some  one  of  them  should  have  the  good 
fortune  to  kill  him !  The  scheme  met  with  general 


THE  LEAGUE   OF  FRIENDSHIP.        129 

favour,  but  was  defeated  by  the  exertions  of  Ledyard 
himself,  whose  zeal  was  not  ardent  enough  to  con 
done  treachery  and  murder.  The  incident  well 
illustrates  the  intense  bitterness  of  political  pas 
sion  at  the  time,  as  Hamilton's  conduct  shows  him 
in  the  light  of  a  most  courageous  and  powerful 
defender  of  the  central  government.  For  nothing 
was  more  significant  in  the  verdict  which  he  had 
obtained  than  its  implicit  assertion  of  the  rights  of 
the  United  States  as  against  the  legislature  of  a 
single  state. 

In  spite  of  the  efforts  of  such  men  as  Hamilton, 
life  was  made  very  uncomfortable  for  the  Tories. 
In  some  states  they  were  subjected  to  mob  violence. 
Instances  of  tarring  and  feathering  were  not  un 
common.  The  legislature  of  South  Carolina  was 
honourably  distinguished  for  the  good  faith  with 
which  it  endeavoured  to  enforce  the  recommenda 
tion  of  Congress ;  but  the  people,  unable  to  forget 
the  smoking  ruins  of  plundered  homes,  were  less 
lenient.  Notices  were  posted  ordering  prominent 
loyalists  to  leave  the  country;  the  newspapers 
teemed  with  savage  warnings ;  and  finally,  of  those 
who  tarried  beyond  a  certain  time,  many  were  shot 
or  hanged  to  trees.  This  extremity  of  bitterness, 
however,  did  not  long  continue.  The  instances  of 
physical  violence  were  mostly  confined  to  the  first 
two  or  three  years  after  the  close  of  the  war. 
In  most  of  the  states  the  confiscating  acts  were 
after  a  while  repealed,  and  many  of  the  loyalists 
were  restored  to  their  estates.  But  the  w 

Emigration 

emigration   which   took   place   between   °fTories- 
1783  and  1785  was  very  large.     It  has  been  esti- 


130          THE  LEAGUE   OF  FRIENDSHIP. 

mated  that  100,000  persons,  or  nearly  three  per 
cent,  of  the  total  white  population,  quit  the  coun 
try.  Those  from  the  southern  states  went  mostly 
to  the  Bahamas  and  Florida  ;  while  those  from  the 
north  laid  the  foundation  of  new  British  states  in 
New  Brunswick  and  Upper  Canada.  Many  of 
these  refugees  appealed  to  the  British  government 
for  indemnification  for  their  losses,  and  their  claims 
received  prompt  attention.  A  parliamentary  com 
mission  was  appointed  to  inquire  into  the  matter, 
and  by  the  year  1790  some  $16,000,000  had  been 
distributed  among  about  4,000  sufferers,  while 
many  others  received  grants  of  crown-lands,  or  half- 
pay  as  military  officers,  or  special  annuities,  or  ap 
pointments  in  the  civil  service.  On  the  whole, 
the  compensation  which  the  refugees  received  from 
Parliament  seems  to  have  been  much  more  ample 
than  that  which  the  ragged  soldiers  of  our  Kevolu- 
tionary  army  ever  received  from  Congress. 

While  the  political  passions  resulting  in  this 
forced  emigration  of  loyalists  were  such  as  naturally 
arise  in  the  course  of  a  civil  war,  the  historian  can 
not  but  regret  that  the  United  Stares  should  have 
been  deprived  of  the  services  of  so  many  excellent 
citizens.  In  nearly  all  such  cases  of  wholesale 
popular  vengeance,  it  is  the  wrong  individuals  who 
suffer.  We  could  well  afford  to  dispense  with  the 
border-ruffians  who  abetted  the  Indians  in  their 
carnival  of  burning  and  scalping,  but  the  refugees 
of  1784  were  for  the  most  part  peaceful  and  unof 
fending  families,  above  the  average  in  education 
and  refinement.  The  vicarious  suffering  inflicted 
upon  them  set  nothing  right,  but  simply  increased 


THE  LEAGUE   OF  FRIENDSHIP.          131 

the  mass  of  wrong,  while  to  the  general  interests 
of  the  country  the  loss  of  such  people  was  in  every 
way  damaging.  The  immediate  political  detriment 
wrought  at  the  time,  though  it  is  that  which  here 
most  nearly  concerns  us,  was  perhaps  the  least  im 
portant.  Since  Congress  was  manifestly  unable 
to  carry  out  the  treaty,  an  excuse  was  furnished  to 
England  for  declining  to  fulfil  some  of  its  pro 
visions.  In  regard  to  the  loyalists,  indeed,  the 
treaty  had  recognized  that  Congress  possessed  but 
an  advisory  power ;  but  in  the  other  provision  con 
cerning  the  payment  of  private  debts,  which  in  the 
popular  mind  was  very  much  mixed  up  with  the 
question  of  justice  to  the  loyalists,  the  faith  of  the 
United  States  was  distinctly  pledged.  Congressis 
On  this  point  also  Congress  was  power- 
less  to  enforce  the  treaty.  Massachu- 
setts,  New  York,  Pennsylvania,  Mary- 
land,  Virginia,  and  South  Carolina  had 
all  enacted  laws  obstructing  the  collec-  Astern  posts. 
tion  of  British  debts ;  and  in  flat  defiance  of  the 
treaty  these  statutes  remained  in  force  until  after 
the  downfall  of  the  Confederation.  The  states 
were  aware  that  such  conduct  needed  an  excuse, 
and  one  was  soon  forthcoming.  Many  negroes 
had  left  the  country  with  the  British  fleet :  some 
doubtless  had  sought  their  freedom  ;  others,  per 
haps,  had  been  kidnapped  as  booty,  and  sold  to 
planters  in  the  West  Indies.  The  number  of  these 
black  men  carried  away  by  the  fleet  had  been  mag 
nified  tenfold  by  popular  rumour.  Complaints  had 
been  made  to  Sir  Guy  Carleton,  but  he  had  replied 
that  any  negro  who  came  within  his  lines  was  pre« 


132        THE  LEAGUE   OF  FRIENDSHIP. 

sumably  a  freeman,  and  he  could  not  lend  his  aid 
in  remanding  such  persons  to  slavery.  Jay,  as  one 
of  the  treaty  commissioners,  gave  it  as  his  opinion 
that  Carleton  was  quite  right  in  this,  but  he  thought 
that  where  a  loss  of  slaves  could  be  proved,  Great 
Britain  was  bound  to  make  pecuniary  compensation 
to  the  owners.  The  matter  was  wrangled  over  for 
several  years,  in  the  state  legislatures,  in  town  and 
county  meetings,  at  dinner-tables,  and  in  bar-rooms, 
with  the  general  result  that,  until  such  compensa 
tion  should  be  made,  the  statutes  hindering  the 
collection  of  debts  would  not  be  repealed.  In  re 
taliation  for  this,  Great  Britain  refused  to  withdraw 
her  garrisons  from  the  western  fortresses,  which 
the  treaty  had  surrendered  to  the  United  States. 
This  measure  was  very  keenly  felt  by  the  people. 
As  an  assertion  of  superior  strength,  it  was  pecul 
iarly  galling  to  our  weak  and  divided  confederacy, 
and  it  also  wrought  us  direct  practical  injury.  It 
encouraged  the  Indian  tribes  in  their  depredations 
on  the  frontier,  and  it  deprived  American  mer 
chants  of  an  immensely  lucrative  trade  in  furs.  In 
the  spring  of  1787  there  were  advertised  for  sale 
in  London  more  than  360,000  skins,  worth  $1,200,- 
000  at  the  lowest  estimate ;  and  had  the  posts  been 
surrendered  according  to  the  treaty,  all  this  would 
have  passed  through  the  hands  of  American  mer 
chants.  The  London  fur-traders  were  naturally 
loth  to  lose  their  control  over  this  business,  and  in 
the  language  of  modern  politics  they  brought 
"  pressure "  to  bear  on  the  government  to  retain 
the  fortresses  as  long  as  possible.  The  American 
refusal  to  pay  British  creditors  furnished  an  excel- 


THE  LEAGUE   OF  FRIENDSHIP.        133 

lent  excuse,  while  the  weakness  of  Congress  made 
any  kind  of  reprisal  impossible ;  and  it  was  not 
until  Washington's  second  term  as  president,  after 
our  national  credit  had  been  restored  and  the 
strength  of  our  new  government  made  manifest, 
that  England  surrendered  this  chain  of  strongholds, 
commanding  the  woods  and  waters  of  our  north 
western  frontier. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

DRIFTING  TOWARD   ANARCHY. 

AT  the  close  of  the  eighteenth  century  the  bar 
barous  superstitions  of  the  Middle  Ages  concern 
ing  trade  between  nations  still  flourished  with 
scarcely  diminished  vitality.  The  epoch-making 
work  of  Adam  Smith  had  been  published  in  the 
same  year  in  which  the  United  States  declared 
their  independence.  The  one  was  the  great  scien 
tific  event,  as  the  other  was  the  great  political 
event  of  the  age  ;  but  of  neither  the  one  nor  the 
other  were  the  scope  and  purport  fathomed  at  the 
time.  Among  the  foremost  statesmen,  those  who, 
like  Shelburne  and  Gallatin,  understood  the  prin 
ciples  of  the  "  Wealth  of  Nations  "  were  few  indeed. 

The  simple  principle  that  when  two  par- 
Barbarous  SU-  .  -ill  1  • 

petitions        ties  trade  botli  must  be  gamers,  or  one 

about  ,  trade. 

would  soon  stop  trading,  was  generally 
lost  sight  of  ;  and  most  commercial  legislation  pro 
ceeded  upon  the  theory  that  in  trade,  as  in  gam 
bling  or  betting,  what  the  one  party  gains  the  other 
must  lose.  Hence  towns,  districts,  and  nations 
surrounded  themselves  with  walls  of  legislative  re 
strictions  intended  to  keep  out  the  monster  Trade, 
->r  to  admit  him  only  on  strictest  proof  that  he 
could  do  no  harm.  On  this  barbarous  theory,  the 
use  of  a  colony  consisted  in  its  being  a  customer 


DRIFTING   TOWARD  ANARCHY.        135 

which  you  could  compel  to  trade  with  yourself, 
while  you  could  prevent  it  from  trading  with  any 
body  else ;  and  having  secured  this  point,  you 
could  cunningly  arrange  things  by  legislation  so  as 
to  throw  all  the  loss  upon  this  enforced  customer, 
and  keep  all  the  gain  to  yourself.  In  the  seven 
teenth  and  eighteenth  centuries  all  the  commercial 
legislation  of  the  great  colonizing  states  was  based 
upon  this  theory  of  the  use  of  a  colony.  For  ef 
fectiveness,  it  shared  to  some  extent  the  character 
istic  features  of  legislation  for  making  water  run 
up  hill.  It  retarded  commercial  development  all 
over  the  world,  fostered  monopolies,  made  the  rich 
richer  and  the  poor  poorer,  hindered  the  inter 
change  of  ideas  and  the  refinement  of  manners, 
and  sacrificed  millions  of  human  lives  in  misdi 
rected  warfare  ;  but  what  it  was  intended  to-  do  it 
did  not  do.  The  sturdy  race  of  smugglers  —  those 
despised  pioneers  of  a  higher  civilization  —  thrived 
in  defiance  of  kings  and  parliaments ;  and  as  it 
was  impossible  to  carry  out  such  legislation  thor 
oughly  without  stopping  trade  altogether,  colonies 
and  mother  countries  contrived  to  increase  their 
wealth  in  spite  of  it.  The  colonies,  however,  un* 
derstood  the  animus  of  the  theory  in  so  far  as  it 
was  directed  against  them,  and  the  revolutionary 
sentiment  in  America  had  gained  much  of  its 
strength  from  the  protest  against  this  one-sided 
justice.  In  one  of  its  most  important  aspects,  the 
."Revolution  was  a  deadly  blow  aimed  at  the  old 
system  of  trade  restrictions.  ~vlt  was  to  a  certain 
extent  a  step  in  realization  of  the  noble  doctrines 
of  Adam  Smith.  But  where  the  scientific  thinker 


136        DRIFTING   TOWARD  ANARCHY. 

grasped  the  whole  principle  involved  in  the  matter, 
the  practical  statesmen  saw  only  the  special  appli- 
oation  which  seemed  to  concern  them  for  the  mo 
ment.  They  all  understood  that  the  Eevolution 
had  set  them  free  to  trade  with  other  countries 
than  England,  but  very  few  of  them  understood 
that,  whatever  countries  trade  together,  the  one 
cannot  hope  to  benefit  by  impoverishing  the  other. 
This  point  is  much  better  understood  in  Eng 
land  to-day  than  in  the  United  States ;  but  a  cen 
tury  ago  there  was  little  to  choose  between  the  two 
countries  in  ignorance  of  political  economy.  Eng 
land  had  gained  great  wealth  and  power  through 
trade  with  her  rapidly  growing  American  colonies. 
One  of  her  chief  fears,  in  the  event  of  American 
independence,  had  been  the  possible  loss  of  that 
trade.  English  merchants  feared  that  American 
commerce,  when  no  longer  confined  to  its  old  paths 
by  legislation,  would  somehow  find  its  way  to 
France  and  Holland  and  Spain  and  other  countries, 
until  nothing  would  be  left  for  England.  The 
Revolution  worked  no  such  change,  however.  The 
principal  trade  of  the  United  States  was  with  Eng 
land,  as  before,  because  England  could  best  supply 
the  goods  that  Americans  wanted ;  and  it  is  such 
considerations,  and  not  acts  of  Parliament,  that  de 
termine  trade  in  its  natural  and  proper  channels. 
In  1783  Pitt  introduced  into  Parliament  a  bill 
which  would  have  secured  mutual  unconditional 
free  trade  between  the  two  countries  ;  and  this  was 
what  such  men  as  Franklin,  Jefferson,  and  Madi 
son  desired.  Could  this  bill  have  passed,  the  hard 
feelings  occasioned  by  the  war  would  soon  have 


DRIFTING   TOWARD  ANARCHY.        137 

died  out,  the  commercial  progress  of  both  countries 
would  have  been  promoted,  and  the  stupid  meas 
ures  which  led  to  a  second  war  within  thirty  years 
might  have  been  prevented.  But  the  wisdom  of 
Pitt  found  less  favour  in  Parliament  than  the  dense 
stupidity  of  Lord  Sheffield,  who  thought  that  to 
admit  Americans  to  the  carrying  trade  would  un 
dermine  the  naval  power  of  Great  Britain.  Pitt's 
measure  was  defeated,  and  the  regulation  of  com 
merce  with  America  was  left  to  the  king  in  coun 
cil.  Orders  were  forthwith  passed  as  if  upon  the 
theory  that  America  poor  would  be  a  better  cus 
tomer  than  America  rich. 

The  carrying  trade  to  the  West  Indies  had  been 
one  of  the  most  important  branches  of  American 
industry.  The  men  of  New  England 

.  °  Shipbuilding 

were  famous  for  seamanship,  and  bet-  i«  New  Eng- 

land. 

ter  and  cheaper  ships  could  be  built  in 
the  seaports  of  Massachusetts  than  anywhere  in 
Great  Britain.  An  oak  vessel  could  be  built  at 
Gloucester  or  Salem  for  twenty-four  dollars  per 
ton  ;  a  ship  of  live-oak  or  American  cedar  cost  not 
more  than  thirty-eight  dollars  per  ton.  On  the 
other  hand,  fir  vessels  built  on  the  Baltic  cost 
thirty-five  dollars  per  ton,  and  nowhere  in  Eng 
land,  France,  or  Holland  could  a  ship  be  made  of 
oak  for  less  than  fifty  dollars  per  ton.  Often  the 
cost  was  as  high  as  sixty  dollars.  It  was  not 
strange,  therefore,  that  before  the  war  more  than 
one  third  of  the  tonnage  afloat  under  the  British 
flag  was  launched  from  American  dock-yards.  The 
war  had  violently  deprived  England  of  this  enor 
mous  advantage,  and  now  she  sought  to  make  the 


138        DRIFTING   TOWARD  ANARCHY. 

privation  perpetual,  in  the  delusive  hope  of  confin 
ing  British  trade  to  British  keels,  and  in  the  belief 
that  it  was  the  height  of  wisdom  to  impoverish  the 
nation  which  she  regarded  as  her  best  customer. 
In  July,  1783,  an  order  in  council  proclaimed  that 
henceforth  all  trade  between  the  United  States  and 
the  British  West  Indies  must  be  carried  on  io 
British-built  ships,  owned  and  navigated  by  British 
subjects.  A  serious  blow  was  thus  dealt  not  only 
at  American  shipping,  but  also  at  the  interchange 
of  commodities  between  the  states  and  the  islands, 
which  was  greatly  hampered  by  this  restriction. 
During  the  whole  of  the  eighteenth  century  the 
British  naviga-  West  India  sugar  trade  with  the  North 
oSlrstncoL  American  colonies  and  with  Great  Brit- 
againsrteAmderi-  ain  had  been  of  immense  value  to  all 
'  parties,  and  all  had  been  seriously  dam 
aged  by  the  curtailment  of  it  due  to  the  war.  Now 
that  the  artificial  state  of  things  created  by  the  war 
was  to  be  perpetuated  by  legislation,  the  prospect 
of  repairing  the  loss  seemed  indefinitely  postponed. 
Moreover,  even  in  trading  directly  with  Great 
Britain,  American  ships  were  only  allowed  to  bring 
in  articles  produced  in  the  particular  states  of 
which  their  owners  were  citizens,  —  an  enactment 
which  seemed  to  add  insult  to  injury,  inasmuch  as 
it  directed  especial  attention  to  the  want  of  union 
among  the  thirteen  states.  Great  indignation  was 
aroused  in  America,  and  reprisals  were  talked  of, 
but  efforts  were  first  made  to  obtain  a  commercial 
treaty. 

In   1785  Franklin  returned  from  France,  and 
Jefferson  was  sent  as  minister  in  his  stead,  while 


DRIFTING   TOWARD  ANARCHY        139 

John  Adams  became  the  first  representative  of  the 
United  States  at  the  British  court.  Adams  was 
at  first  very  courteously  received  by  George  III., 
and  presently  set  to  work  to  convince  Lord  Car 
marthen,  the  foreign  secretary,  of  the  desirableness 
of  unrestricted  intercourse  between  the -two' coun 
tries.  But  popular  opinion  in  England 

f    r  .  T>    4.    John  Adams 

was  obstinately  set  against*  him.     13ut  tries  m  vam to 

XT  A  11  i  negotiate  a 

for  the  Navigation  Act  and  the  orders  commercial 

•  i     .  .  -IT       1  •  -i-i     treaty. 

in  council,  it  was  said,  all  ships  would 
by  and  by  come  to  be  built  in  America,  and  every 
time  a  frigate  was  wanted  for  the  navy  the  Lords 
of  Admiralty  would  have  to  send  over  to  Boston 
or  Philadelphia  and  order  one.  Kather  than  do 
such  a  thing  as  this,  it  was  thought  that  the  British 
navy  should  content  itself  with  vessels  of  inferior 
workmanship  and  higher  cost,  built  in  British  dock 
yards.  Thirty  years  after,  England  gathered  an 
unexpected  fruit  of  this  narrow  policy,  when,  to 
her  intense  bewilderment,  she  saw  frigate  after 
frigate  outsailed  and  defeated  in  single  combat 
with  American  antagonists.  Owing  to  her  exclu 
sive  measures,  the  rapid  improvement  in  American 
shipbuilding  had  gone  on  quite  beyond  her  ken, 
until  she  was  thus  rudely  awakened  to  it.  With 
similar  short-sighted  jealousy,  it  was  argued  that 
the  American  share  in  the  whale-fishery  and  in  the 
Newfoundland  fishery  should  be  curtailed  as  much 
as  possible.  Spermaceti  oil  was  much  needed  in 
England:  complaints  were  rife  of  robbery1  and 
murder  in  the  dimly  lighted  streets  of  London  and 
other  great  cities.  But  it  was  thought  that  if 
American  ships  could  carry  oil  to  England  and 


140        DRIFTING   TOWARD  ANARCHY. 

salt  fish  to  Jamaica,  the  supply  of  seamen  for  the 
British  navy  would  be  diminished ;  and  accord 
ingly  such  privileges  must  not  be  granted  the  Amer 
icans  unless  valuable  privileges  could  be  granted 
in  return.  But  the  government  of  the  United 
States  could  grant  no  privileges  because  it  could 
impose  no  restrictions.  British  manufactured  goods 
were  needed  in  America,  and  Congress,  which  could 
levy  no  duties,  had  no  power  to  keep  them  out. 
British  merchants  and  manufacturers,  it  was  ar 
gued,  already  enjoyed  all  needful  privileges  in. 
American  ports,  and'  accordingly  they  asked  no 
favours  and  granted  none. 

Such  were  the  arguments  to  which  Adams  was 
obliged  to  listen.  The  popular  feeling  was  so 
strong  that  Pitt  could  not  have  stemmed  it  if  he 
would.  It  was  in  vain  that  Adams  threatened  re 
prisals,  and  urged  that  the  British  measures  would 
defeat  their  own  purpose.  "  The  end  of  the  Navi 
gation  Act,"  said  he,  "  as  expressed  in  its  own  pre 
amble,  is  to  confine  the  commerce  of  the  colonies 
to  the  mother  country  ;  but  now  we  are  become  in 
dependent  states,  instead  of  confining  our  trade  to 
Great  Britain,  it  will  drive  it  to  other  countries : " 
and  he  suggested  that  the  Americans  might  make 
a  navigation  act  in  their  turn,  admitting  to  Amer 
ican  ports  none  but  American-built  ships,  owned 
and  commanded  by  Americans.  But  under  the 
articles  of  confederation  such  a  threat  was  idle, 
and  the  British  government  knew  it  to  be  so.  Thir 
teen  separate  state  governments  could  never  be 
made  to  adopt  any  such  measure  in  concert.  The 
weakness  of  Congress  had  been  fatally  revealed  in 


DRIFTING   TOWARD  ANARCHY.        141 

its  inability  to  protect  the  loyalists  or  to  enforce 
the  payment  of  debts,  and  in  its  failure  to  raise  a 
revenue  for  meeting  its  current  expenses.  A  gov 
ernment  thus  slighted  at  home  was  naturally  de 
spised  abroad.  England  neglected  to  send  a  minis 
ter  to  Philadelphia,  and  while  Adams  was  treated 
politely,  his  arguments  were  unheeded.  Whether 
in  this  behaviour  Pitt's  government  was  influenced 
or  not  by  political  as  well  as  economical  reasons,  it 
was  certain  that  a  political  purpose  was  entertained 
by  the  king  and  approved  by  many  people.  There 
was  an  intention  of  humiliating  the  Americans,  and 
it  was  commonly  said  that  under  a  sufficient  weight 
of  commercial  distress  the  states  would  break  up 
their  feeble  union,  and  come  straggling  back,  one 
after  another,  to  their  old  allegiance,  The  fiery 
spirit  of  Adams  could  ill  brook  this  contemptuous 
treatment  of  the  nation  which  he  represented. 
Though  he  favoured  very  liberal  commercial  rela 
tions  with  the  whole  world,  he  could  see  no  escape 
from  the  present  difficulties  save  in  systematic  re 
taliation.  "  I  should  be  sorry,'*  he  said,  "  to  adopt 
a  monopoly,  but,  driven  to  the  necessity  of  it,  I 
would  not  do  things  by  halves.  ...  If  monopolies; 
and  exclusions  are  the  only  arms  of  defence  against 
monopolies  and  exclusions,  I  would  venture  upon 
them  without  fear  of  offending  Dean  Tucker,  or  the 
ghost  of  Dr.  Quesnay."  That  is  to  say,  certain 
commercial  privileges  must  be  withheld  from  Great 
Britain,  in  order  to  be  offered  to  her  in  return  for 
reciprocal  privileges.  It  was  a  miserable  policy  to 
be  forced  to  adopt,  for  such  restrictions  upon  trade 
inevitably  cut  both  ways.  Like  the  non-importar 


142         DRIFTING   TOWARD  ANARCHY. 

tion  agreement  of  1768  and  the  embargo  of  1808, 
such  a  policy  was  open  to  the  objections  familiarly 
urged  against  biting  off  one's  own  nose.  It  was 
injuring  one's  self  in  the  hope  of  injuring  some 
body  else.  It  was  perpetuating  in  time  of  peace 
the  obstacles  to  commerce  generated  by  a  state  of 
war.  In  a  certain  sense,  it  was  keeping  up  war 
fare  by  commercial  instead  of  military  methods, 
and  there  was  danger  that  it  might  lead  to  a  re 
newal  of  armed  conflict.  Nevertheless,  the  con 
duct  of  the  British  government  seemed  to  Adams 
to  leave  no  other  course  open.  But  such  "  means 
of  preserving  ourselves,"  he  said,  "can  never  be 
secured  until  Congress  shall  be  made  supreme  in 
foreign  commerce." 

It  was  obvious  enough  that  the  separate  action 
of  the  states  upon   such  a  question  was  only  add 
ing  to  the  general  uncertainty  and  confusion.     In 
1785  New  York  laid  a  double  dutv  on 

Reprisal  im-  .  \ 

possible;  the    all  goods  whatever  imported  in  British 

states  impose  .  A 

duties*"*  sniPs'  I11  tne  same  year  Pennsylvania 
passed  the  first  of  the  long  series  of 
American  tariff  acts,  designed  to  tax  the  whole 
community  for  the  alleged  benefit  of  a  few  greedy 
manuiacturers.  Massachusetts  sought  to  establish 
committees  of  correspondence  for  the  purpose  of 
entering  into  a  new  non-importation  agreement, 
and  its  legislature  resolved  that  "  the  present  pow 
ers  of  the  Congress  of  the  United  States,  as  con 
tained  in  the  articles  of  confederation,  are  not 
fully  adequate  to  the  great  purposes  they  were 
originally  designed  to  effect."  The  Massachusetts 
delegates  in  Congress  —  Gerry,  Holton,  and  King 


DRIFTING   TOWARD  ANARCHY.        143 

—  were  instructed  to  recommend  a  general  conven 
tion  of  the  states  for  the  purpose  of  revising  and 
amending  the  articles  of  confederation ;  but  the 
delegates  refused  to  comply  with  their  instructions, 
and  set  forth  their  reasons  in  a  paper  which  was 
approved  by  Samuel  Adams,  and  caused  the  legis 
lature  to  reconsider  its  action.  It  was  feared  that 
a  call  for  a  convention  might  seem  too  much  like 
an  open  expression  of  a  want  of  confidence  in  Con 
gress,  and  might  thereby  weaken  it  still  further 
without  accomplishing  any  good  result.  For  the 
present,  as  a  temporary  expedient,  Massachusetts 
took  counsel  with  New  Hampshire,  and  the  two 
states  passed  navigation  acts,  prohibiting  British 
ships  from  carrying  goods  out  of  their  harbours, 
and  imposing  a  fourfold  duty  upon  all  such  goods 
as  they  should  bring  in.  A  discriminating  tonnage 
duty  was  also  laid  upon  all  foreign  vessels.  Rhode 
island  soon  after  adopted  similar  measures.  In 
Congress  a  scheme  for  a  uniform  navigation  act, 
to  be  concurred  in  and  passed  by  all  the  thirteen 
states,  was  suggested  by  one  of  the  Maryland  dele 
gates  ;  but  it  was  opposed  by  Richard  Henry  Lee 
and  most  of  the  delegates  from  the  far  south. 
The  southern  states,  having  no  ships  or  seamen 
of  their  own,  feared  that  the  exclusion  of  British 
competition  might  enable  northern  ship-owners  to 
charge  exorbitant  rates  for  carrying  their  rice  and 
tobacco,  thus  subjecting  them  to  a  ruinous  monop 
oly ;  but  the  gallant  Moultrie,  then  governor  of 
South  Carolina,  taking  a  broader  view  of  the  case, 
wrote  to  Bowdoin,  governor  of  Massachusetts,  as 
serting  the  paramount  need  of  harmonious 


144         DRIFTING   TOWARD  ANARCHY. 

united  action.  In  the  Virginia  assembly,  a  hot 
headed  member,  named  Thurston,  declared  himself 
in  doubt  "  whether  it  would  not  be  better  to  en 
courage  the  British  rather  than  the  eastern  ma 
rine  ;  "  but  the  remark  was  greeted  with  hisses  and 
groans,  and  the  speaker  was  speedily  put  down. 
Amid  such  mutual  jealousies  and  misgivings,  dur 
ing  the  year  1785  acts  were  passed  by  ten  states 
granting  to  Congress  the  power  of  regulating  com 
merce  for  the  ensuing  thirteen  years.  The  three 
states  which  refrained  from  acting  were  Georgia, 
South  Carolina,  and  Delaware.  The  acts  of  the 
other  ten  were,  as  might  have  been  expected,  a 
jumble  of  incongruities.  North  Carolina  granted 
all  the  power  that  was  asked,  but  stipulated  that 
when  all  the  states  should  have  done  likewise  their 
acts  should  be  summed  up  in  a  new  article  of  con 
federation.  Connecticut,  Pennsylvania,  and  Mary 
land  had  fixed  the  date  at  which  the  grant  was  to 
take  effect,  while  Khode  Island  provided  that  it 
should  not  expire  until  after  the  lapse  of  twenty- 
five  years.  The  grant  by  New  Hampshire  allowed 
the  power  to  be  used  only  in  one  specified  way,  — 
by  restricting  the  duties  imposable  by  the  several 
states.  The  grants  of  Massachusetts,  New  York, 
New  Jersey,  and  Virginia  were  not  to  take  effect 
until  all  the  others  should  go  into  operation.  The 
only  thing  which  Congress  could  do  with  these  acts 
was  to  refer  them  back  to  the  several  legislatures, 
with  a  polite  request  to  try  to  reduce  them  to  some 
thing  like  uniformity. 

Meanwhile,   the  different  states,  with  their  dif 
ferent  tariff  and  tonnage  acts,  began  to  make  com- 


DRIFTING   TOWARD  ANARCHY.         145 

mercial  war  upon  one  another.  No  sooner  had  the 
other  three  New  England  states  virtually  closed 
their  ports  to  British  shipping  than 

r  .  .  f  x  Commercial 

Connecticut  threw  hers  wide   open,  an  war  between 

11-          different  states. 

act  which  she  followed  up  by  laying 
duties  upon  imports  from  Massachusetts.  Penn= 
sylvania  discriminated  against  Delaware,  and  New 
Jersey,  pillaged  at  once  by  both  her  greater  neigh- 
bours,  was  compared  to  a  cask  tapped  at  both  ends. 
The  conduct  of  New  York  became  especially  selfish 
and  blameworthy.  That  rapid  growth  which  was 
so  soon  to  carry  the  city  and  the  state  to  a  position 
of  primacy  in  the  Union  had  already  begun.  After 
the  departure  of  the  British  the  revival  of  business 
went  on  with  leaps  and  bounds.  The  feeling  of 
local  patriotism  waxed  strong,  and  in  no  one  was  it 
more  completely  manifested  than  in  George  Clin 
ton,  the  Revolutionary  general,  whom  the  people 
elected  governor  for  nine  successive  terms.  From 
a  humble  origin,  by  dint  of  shrewdness  and  untir 
ing  push,  Clinton  had  come  to  be  for  the  moment 
the  most  powerful  man  in  the  state  of  New  York. 
He  had  come  to  look  upon  the  state  almost  as  if 
it  were  his  own  private  manor,  and  his  life  was  de 
voted  to  furthering  its  interests  as  he  understood 
them.  It  was  his  first  article  of  faith  that  New 
York  must  be  the  greatest  state  in  the  Union. 
But  his  conceptions  of  statesmanship  were  ex 
tremely  narrow.  In  his  mind,  the  welfare  of  New 
York  meant  the  pulling  down  and  thrusting  aside 
of  all  her  neighbours  and  rivals.  He  was  the  vigor* 
ous  and  steadfast  advocate  of  every  illiberal  and 
exclusive  measure,  and  the  most  uncompromising 


r 


146        DRIFTING   TOWARD  ANARCHY. 

enemy  to  a  closer  union  of  the  states.  His  great 
popular  strength  and  the  commercial  importance 
of  the  community  in  which  he  held  sway  made  him 
at  this  time  the  most  dangerous  man  in  America. 
The  political  victories  presently  to  be  won  by  Ham 
ilton,  Schuyler,  and  Livingston,  without  which  our 
grand  and  pacific  federal  union  could  not  have 
been  brought  into  being,  were  victories  won  by 
most  desperate  fighting  against  the  dogged  opposi 
tion  of  Clinton.  Under  his  guidance,  the  history 
of  New  York,  during  the  five  years  following  the 
peace  of  1783,  was  a  shameful  story  of  greedy  mo 
nopoly  and  sectional  hate.  Of  all  the  thirteen 
states,  none  behaved  worse  except  Rhode  Island. 

A  single  instance,  which  occurred  early  in  1787, 
may  serve  as  an  illustration.  The  city  of  New 
York,  with  its  population  of  30,000  souls,  had  long 
been  supplied  with  firewood  from  Connecticut,  and 
with  butter  and  cheese,  chickens  and  garden  vege 
tables,  from  the  thrifty  farms  of  New  Jersey. 
This  trade,  it  was  observed,  carried  thousands  of 
dollars  out  of  the  city  and  into  the  pockets  of  de 
tested  Yankees  and  despised  Jerseymen.  It  was 
ruinous  to  domestic  industry,  said  the  men  of  New 
York.  It  must  be  stopped  by  those  effective  rem 
edies  of  the  Sangrado  school  of  economic  doctors, 
a  navigation  act  and  a  protective  tariff.  Acts 
were  accordingly  passed,  obliging  every  Yankee 
sloop  which  came  down  through  Hell  Gate,  and 
every  Jersey  market  boat  which  was  rowed  across 
from  Paulus  Hook  to  Cortlandt  Street,  to  pay  en 
trance  fees  and  obtain  clearances  at  the  custom 
house,  just  as  was  done  by  ships  from  London  or 


DRIFTING   TOWARD  ANARCHY.         147 

Hamburg ;  and  not  a  cart-load  of  Connecticut  fire 
wood  could  be  delivered  at  the  back-door  of  a 
country-house  in  Beekman  Street  until  it  should 
have  paid  a  heavy  duty.  Great  and  just  was  the 
wrath  of  the  farmers  and  lumbermen.  The  New 
Jersey  legislature  made  up  its  mind  to  retaliate. 
The  city  of  New  York  had  lately  bought  a  small 
patch  of  ground  on  Sandy  Hook,  and  had  built  a 
light-house  there.  This  light-house  was  the  one 
weak  spot  in  the  heel  of  Achilles  where  a  hostile 
arrow  could  strike,  and  New  Jersey  gave  vent  to 
her  indignation  by  laying  a  tax  of  $1,800  a  year  on 
it.  Connecticut  was  equally  prompt.  At  a  great 
meeting  of  business  men,  held  at  New  London,  it 
was  unanimously  agreed  to  suspend  all  commercial 
intercourse  with  New  York.  Every  merchant 
signed  an  agreement,  under  penalty  of  $250  for 
the  first  offence,  not  to  send  any  goods  whatever 
into  the  hated  state  for  a  period  of  twelve  months. 
By  such  retaliatory  measures,  it  was  hoped  that 
New  York  might  be  compelled  to  rescind  her  odi 
ous  enactment.  But  such  meetings  and  such  re 
solves  bore  an  ominous  likeness  to  the  meetings 
and  resolves  which  in  the  years  before  1775  had 
heralded  a  state  of  war  ;  and  but  for  the  good  work 
done  by  the  federal  convention  another  five  years 
would  scarcely  have  elapsed  before  shots  would 
have  been  fired  and  seeds  of  perennial  hatred  sown 
on  the  shores  that  look  toward  Manhattan  Island. 
To  these  commercial  disputes  there  were  added 
disputes  about  territory.  The  chronic  quarrel  be 
tween  Connecticut  and  Pennsylvania  over  the  valley 
of  Wyoming  was  decided  in  the  autumn  of  1782 


j 


148        DRIFTING   TOWARD  ANARCHY. 

by  a  special  federal  court,  appointed   in   accord 
ance  with  the  articles  of  confederation. 

Disputes  about  . 

territory;  dis-   Ihe  prize  was  adiudged  to  Pennsylva- 

asters    in    the        .          r  J  J 

ma»  and  the  government  of  Connecti 
cut  submitted  as  gracefully  as  possible. 
But  new  troubles  were  in  store  for  the  inhabitants 
of  that  beautiful  region.  The  traces  of  the  massa- 
cro  of  1778  had  disappeared,  the  houses  had  been 
rebuilt,  new  settlers  had  come  in,  and  the  pretty 
villages  had  taken  on  their  old  look  of  content 
ment  and  thrift,  when  in  the  spring  of  1784  there 
came  an  accumulation  of  disasters.  During  a  very 
cold  winter  great  quantities  of  snow  had  fallen, 
and  lay  piled  in  huge  masses  on  the  mountain 
sides,  until  in  March  a  sudden  thaw  set  in.  The 
Susqnehanna  rose,  and  overflowed  the  valley,  and 
great  blocks  of  ice  drifted  here  and  there,  carrying 
death  and  destruction  with  them.  Houses,  barns, 
and  fences  were  swept  away,  the  cattle  were 
drowned,  the  fruit  trees  broken  down,  the  stores 
of  food  destroyed,  and  over  the  whole  valley  there 
lay  a  stratum  of  gravel  and  pebbles.  The  people 
were  starving  with  cold  and  hunger,  and  President 
Dickinson  urged  the  legislature  to  send  prompt  re 
lief  to  the  sufferers.  But  the  hearts  of  the  mem 
bers  were  as  flint,  and  their  talk  was  incredibly 
wicked.  Not  a  penny  would  they  give  to  help  the 
accursed  Yankees.  It  served  them  right.  If  they 
had  stayed  in  Connecticut,  where  they  belonged, 
they  would  have  kept  out  of  harm's  way.  And 
with  a  blasphemy  thinly  veiled  in  phrases  of  pious 
unction,  the  desolation  of  the  valley  was  said  to 
have  been  contrived  by  the  Deity  with  the  express 


DRIFTING   TOWARD  ANARCHY.        149 

object  of  punishing  these  trespassers.  But  the 
cruelty  of  the  Pennsylvania  legislature  was  not  con 
fined  to  words.  A  scheme  was  devised  for  driving 
out  the  settlers  and  partitioning  their  lands  among 
a  company  of  speculators.  A  force  of  militia  was 
sent  to  Wyoming,  commanded  by  a  truculent  crea 
ture  named  Patterson.  The  ostensible  purpose  was 
to  assist  in  restoring  order  in  the  valley,  but  the 
behaviour  of  the  soldiers  was  such  as  would  have 
disgraced  a  horde  of  barbarians.  They  stole  what 
they  could  find,  dealt  out  blows  to  the  men  and  in 
sults  to  the  women,  until  their  violence  was  met 
with  violence  in  return.  Then  Patterson  sent  a 
letter  to  President  Dickinson,  accusing  the  farmers 
of  sedition,  and  hinting  that  extreme  measures 
were  necessary.  Having  thus,  as  he  thought,  pre 
pared  the  way,  he  attacked  the  settlement,  turned 
some  five  hundred  people  out-of-doors,  and  burned 
their  houses  to  the  ground.  The  wretched  victims, 
many  of  them  tender  women,  or  infirm  old  men,  or 
little  children,  were  driven  into  the  wilderness  at 
the  point  of  the  bayonet,  and  told  to  find  their  way 
to  Connecticut  without  further  delay.  Heart 
rending  scenes  ensued.  Many  died  of  exhaustion, 
or  furnished  food  for  wolves.  But  this  was  more 
than  the  Pennsylvania  legislature  had  intended. 
Patterson's  zeal  had  carried  him  too  far.  He  was 
recalled,  and  the  sheriff  of  Northumberland  County 
was  sent,  with  a  posse  of  men,  to  protect  the 
settlers.  Patterson  disobeyed,  however,  and  with- 
drawing  his  men  to  a  fortified  lair  in  the  moun 
tains,  kept  up  a  guerilla  warfare.  All  the  Connect* 
icut  men  in  the  neighbouring  country  flew  to  arms* 


150        DRIFTING   TOWARD  ANARCHY. 

Men  were  killed  on  both  sides,  and  presently  Pat 
terson  was  besieged.  A  regiment  of  soldiers  was 
then  sent  from  Philadelphia,  under  Co]onel  Arm 
strong,  who  had  formerly  been  on  Gates's  staff,  the 
author  of  the  incendiary  Newburgh  address.  On 
arriving  in  the  valley,  Armstrong  held  a  parley 
with  the  Connecticut  men,  and  persuaded  them  to 
lay  down  their  arms  ;  assuring  them  on  his  honour 
that  they  should  meet  with  no  ill  treatment,  and 
that  their  enemy,  Patterson,  should  be  disarmed 
also.  Having  thus  fallen  into  this  soldier's  clutches, 
they  were  forthwith  treated  as  prisoners.  Seventy- 
six  of  them  were  handcuffed  and  sent  under  guard, 
some  to  Easton  and  some  to  Northumberland, 
where  they  were  thrown  into  jail. 

Great  was  the  indignation  in  New  England  when 
these  deeds  were  heard  of.  The  matter  had  be 
come  very  serious.  A  war  between  Connecticut 
and  Pennsylvania  might  easily  grow  out  of  it.  But 
the  danger  was  averted  through  a  very  singular 
feature  in  the  Pennsylvania  constitution.  In  order 
to  hold  its  legislature  in  check,  Pennsylvania  had 
a  council  of  censors,  which  was  assembled  once  in 
seven  years  in  order  to  inquire  whether  the  state 
had  been  properly  governed  during  the  interval. 
Soon  after  the  troubles  in  Wyoming  the  regular 
meeting  of  the  censors  was  held,  and  the  conduct 
of  Armstrong  and  Patterson  was  unreservedly  con 
demned.  A  hot  controversy  ensued  between  the 
legislature  and  the  censors,  and  as  the  people  set 
great  store  by  the  latter  peculiar  institution,  public 
sympathy  was  gradually  awakened  for  the  sufferers. 
The  wickedness  of  the  affair  began  to  dawn  upon 


DRIFTING   TOWARD  ANARCHY.         151 

people's  minds,  and  they  were  ashamed  of  what  had 
been  done.  Patterson  and  Armstrong  were  frowned 
down,  the  legislature  disavowed  their  acts,  and  it 
was  ordered  that  full  reparation  should  be  made  to 
the  persecuted  settlers  of  Wyoming.1 

In  the  Green  Mountains  and  on  the  upper  waters 
of  the  Connecticut  there  had  been  trouble  for 
many  years.  In  the  course  of  the  Revolutionary 
War,  the  fierce  dispute  between  New  York  and 
New  Hampshire  for  the  possession  of  the  Green 
Mountains  came  in  from  time  to  time  to  influence 
most  curiously  the  course  of  events.  It  was  closely 
connected  with  the  intrigues  against  General 
Schuyler,  and  thus  more  remotely  with  the  Con  way 
cabal  and  the  treason  of  Arnold.  About  the  time 
of  Burgoyne's  invasion  the  association  of  Green 
Mountain  Boys  endeavoured  to  cut  the  Gordian  knot 
by  declaring  Vermont  an  independent  Troublesin 
state,  and  applying  to  the  Continental  £oiSS, 
Congress  for  admission  into  the  Union.  1777-84- 
The  New  York  delegates  in  Congress  succeeded  in 
defeating  this  scheme,  but  the  Vermont  people  went 
on  and  framed  their  constitution.  Thomas  Chitten- 
den,  a  man  of  rough  manners  but  very  considerable 
ability,  a  farmer  and  innkeeper,  like  Israel  Put 
nam,  was  chosen  governor,  and  held  that  position 
for  many  years.  New  Hampshire  thus  far  had  not 
actively  opposed  these  measures,  but  fresh  grounds 
of  quarrel  were  soon  at  hand.  Several  towns  on 
the  east  bank  of  the  Connecticut  River  wished  to 

1  A  very  interesting1  account  of  these  troubles  may  be  found  in 
the  first  volume  of  Professor  McMaster's  History  of  the  People  oj 
ihe  United  States. 


152        DRIFTING   TOWARD  ANARCHY. 

escape  from  the  jurisdiction  of  New  Hampshire. 
They  preferred  to  belong  to  Vermont,  because  it 
was  not  within  the  Union,  and  accordingly  not 
liable  to  requisitions  of  taxes  from  the  Continental 
Congress.  It  was  conveniently  remembered  that 
by  the  original  grant,  in  the  reign  of  Charles  II.  2 
New  Hampshire  extended  only  sixty  miles  from 
the  coast.  Vermont  was  at  first  inclined  to  assent, 
but  finding  the  scheme  unpopular  in  Congress,  and 
hot  wishing  to  offend  that  body,  she  changed  her 
mind.  The  towns  on  both  banks  of  the  river  then 
tried  to  organize  themselves  into  a  middle  state, 
—  a  sort  of  Lotharingia  on  the  banks  of  this  New 
World  Rhine,  —  to  be  called  New  Connecticut. 
By  this  time  New  Hampshire  was  aroused,  and  she 
called  attention  to  the  fact  that  she  still  believed 
herself  entitled  to  dominion  over  the  whole  of  Ver 
mont.  Massachusetts  now  began  to  suspect  that 
the  upshot  of  the  matter  would  be  the  partition  of 
the  whole  disputed  territory  between  New  Hamp 
shire  and  New  York,  and,  ransacking  her  ancient 
grants  and  charters,  she  decided  to  set  up  a  claim 
on  her  own  part  to  the  southernmost  towns  in  Ver 
mont.  Thus  goaded  on  all  sides,  Vermont  adopted 
an  aggressive  policy.  She  not  only  annexed  the 
towns  east  of  the  Connecticut  River,  but  also  as 
serted  sovereignty  over  the  towns  in  New  York  as 
far  as  the  Hudson.  New  York  sent  troops  to  the 
threatened  frontier,  New  Hampshire  prepared  to 
do  likewise,  and  for  a  moment  war  seemed  inevi 
table.  But  here,  as  in  so  many  other  instances, 
Washington  appeared  as  peacemaker,  and  prevailed 
upon  Governor  Chittenden  to  use  his  influence  in 


DRIFTING   TOWARD  ANARCHY.         153 

getting  the  dangerous  claims  withdrawn.  After 
the  spring  of  1784  the  outlook  was  less  stormy  in 
the  Green  Mountains.  The  conflicting  claims  were 
allowed  to  lie  dormant,  but  the  possibilities  of  mis 
chief  remained,  and  the  Vermont  question  was  not 
finally  settled  until  after  the  adoption  of  the  Fed 
eral  Constitution.  Meanwhile,  on  the  debatable 
frontier  between  Vermont  and  New  York  the  em 
bers  of  hatred  smouldered.  Barns  and  houses  were 
set  on  fire,  and  belated  wayfarers  were  found  mys- 
v  teriously  murdered  in  the  depths  of  the  forest. 

Incidents  like  these  of  Wyoming  and  Vermont 
seem  trivial,  perhaps,  when  contrasted  with  the 
lurid  tales  of  border  warfare  in  older  times  between 
half -civilized  peoples  of  medieval  Europe,  as  we 
read  them  in  the  pages  of  Froissart  and  Sir  Walter 
Scott.  But  their  historic  lesson  is  none  the  less 
clear.  Though  they  lift  the  curtain  but  a  little 
way,  they  show  us  a  glimpse  of  the  untold  dangers 
and  horrors  from  which  the  adoption  of  our  Fed 
eral  Constitution  has  so  thoroughly  freed  us  that 
we  can  only  with  some  effort  realize  how  narrowly 
we  have  escaped  them.  It  is  fit  that  they  should 
be  borne  in  mind,  that  we  may  duly  appreciate  the 
significance  of  the  reign  of  law  and  order  which 
has  been  established  on  this  continent  during  the 
greater  part  of  a  century.  When  reported  in 
Europe,  such  incidents  were  held  to  confirm 
opinion  that  the  American  confederacy  was  going 
to  pieces.  With  quarrels  about  trade  and  quarrels 
about  boundaries,  we  seemed  to  be  treading  the 
old-fashioned  paths  of  anarchy,  even  as  they  had 
been  trodden  in  other  ages  and  other  parts  of  the 


154        DRIFTING   TOWARD  ANARCHY. 

world.  It  was  natural  that  people  in  Europe 
should  think  so,  because  there  was  no  historic  pre 
cedent  to  help  them  in  forming  a  different  opinion. 
No  one  could  possibly  foresee  that  within  five  years 
a  number  of  gentlemen  at  Philadelphia,  containing 
among  themselves  a  greater  amount  of  political 
sagacity  than  had  ever  before  been  brought  to 
gether  within  the  walls  of  a  single  room,  would 
amicably  discuss  the  situation  and  agree  upon  a 
new  system  of  government  whereby  the  dangers 
might  be  once  for  all  averted.  Still  less  could  any 
one  foresee  that  these  gentlemen  would  not  only 
agree  upon  a  scheme  among  themselves,  but  would 
actually  succeed,  without  serious  civil  dissension, 
in  making  the  people  of  thirteen  states  adopt,  de 
fend,  and  cherish  it.  History  afforded  no  example 
of  such  a  gigantic  act  of  constructive  statesman 
ship.  It  was,  moreover,  a  strange  and  apparently 
fortuitous  combination  of  circumstances  that  were 
now  preparing  the  way  for  it  and  making  its  ac 
complishment  possible.  No  one  could  forecast  the 
future.  When  our  ministers  and  agents  in  Europe 
One  nation  or  raise(^  the  question  as  to  making  com- 
thirteen?  mercial  treaties,  they  were  disdainfully 
asked  whether  European  powers  were  expected  to 
deal  with  thirteen  governments  or  with  one.  If  it 
was  answered  that  the  United  States  constituted  a 
single  government  so  far  as  their  relations  with 
foreign  powers  were  concerned,  then  we  were  forth 
with  twitted  with  our  failure  to  keep  our  engage 
ments  with  England  with  regard  to  the  loyalists 
and  the  collection  of  private  debts.  Yes,  we  see, 
said  the  European  diplomats;  the  United  States 


DRIFTING   TOWARD  ANARCHY.         155 

are  one  nation  to-day  and  thirteen  to-morrow,  ao» 
cording  as  may  seem  to  subserve  their  selfish  inter 
ests.  Jefferson,  at  Paris,  was  told  again  and  again 
that  it  was  useless  for  the  French  government  to 
enter  into  any  agreement  with  the  United  States, 
as  there  was  no  certainty  that  it  would  be  fulfilled 
on  our  part ;  and  the  same  things  were  said  all 
over  Europe.  Toward  the  close  of  the  war  most 
of  the  European  nations  had  seemed  ready  to  enter 
into  commercial  arrangements  with  the  United 
States,  but  all  save  Holland  speedily  lost  interest 
in  the  subject.  John  Adams  had  succeeded  in 
making  a  treaty  with  Holland  in  1782.  Frederick 
the  Great  treated  us  more  civilly  than  other 
sovereigns.  One  of  the  last  acts  of  his  life  was  to 
conclude  a  treaty  for  ten  years  with  the  United 
States ;  asserting  the  principle  that  free  ships 
make  free  goods ,  taking  arms  and  military  stores 
out  of  the  class  of  contraband,  agreeing  to  refrain 
from  privateering  even  in  case  of  war  between  the 
two  countries,  and  in  other  respects  showing  a 
liberal  and  enlightened  spirit. 

This  treaty  was  concluded  in  1786.  It  scarcely 
touched  the  subject  of  international  trade  in  time 
of  peace,  but  it  was  valuable  as  regarded  the  mat 
ters  it  covered,  and  in  the  midst  of  the  general 
failure  of  American  diplomacy  in  Europe  it  fell 
pleasantly  upon  our  ears.  Our  diplomacy  had 
failed  because  our  weakness  had  been  proclaimed 
to  the  world.  "We  were  bullied  by  England,  in 
sulted  by  France  and  Spain,  and  looked  askance 
at  in  Holland.  The  humiliating  position  in  which 
our  ministers  were  placed  by  the  beggarly  poverty 


156        DRIFTING   TOWARD  ANARCHY. 

of  Congress  was  something  almost  beyond  credence. 
It  was  by  no  means  unusual  for  the  superintendent 
of  finance,  when  hard  pushed  for  money,  to  draw 
upon  our  foreign  ministers,  and  then  sell  the  drafts 
for  cash.     This  was  not  only  not  unusual ;  it  was 
an   established   custom.     It  was  done  again  and 
again,  when  there  was  not  the  smallest  ground  for 
supposing  that  the  minister  upon  whom  the  draft 
was  made  would  have  any  funds  wherewith  to  meet 
it.     He  must  go  and  beg  the  money.     That  was 
part  of  his  duty  as  envoy,  —  to  solicit  loans  without 
security  for  a   government   that   could  not  raise 
enough  money  by  taxation  to  defray  its  current 
Failure  of        expenses.    It  was  sickening  work.    Just 
before  John  Adams  had  been  appointed 
minister  to  England,  and  while  he  was 
land,  1784.        visiting  in  London,  he  suddenly  learned 
that  drafts  upon  him  had  been  presented  to  his 
bankers  in  Amsterdam  to  the  amount  of  more  than 
a  million  florins.     Less  than  half  a  million  florins 
were  on  hand  to  meet  these  demands,  and  unless 
something  were  done  at  once  the  greater  part  of 
this  paper  would  go  back  to  America  protested. 
Adams  lost  not  a  moment  in  starting  for  Holland. 
In  these  modern  days  of  precision  in  travel,  when 
we  can  translate  space  into  time,  the  distance  be 
tween  London  and  Amsterdam  is  eleven  hours.    It 
was  accomplished   by  Adams,   after   innumerable 
delays  and  vexations  and  no  little  danger,  in  fifty- 
four  days.     The  bankers  had  contrived,  by  ingen 
ious  excuses,  to   keep    the    drafts    from  going  to 
protest  until  the  minister's  arrival,  but  the  gazettes 
were  full  of  the  troubles  of  Congress  and  the  bick 


DRIFTING   TOWARD  ANARCHY.         157 

erings  of  the  states,  and  everybody  was  suspicious. 
Adams  applied  in  vain  to  the  regency  of  Amster- 
lain.  The  promise  of  the  American  government 
•vas  not  regarded  as  valid  security  for  a  sum  equiv 
alent  to  about  three  hundred  thousand  dollars. 
The  members  of  the  regency  were  polite,  but  in 
exorable.  They  could  not  make  a  loan  on  such 
terms ;  it  was  unbusinesslike  and  contrary  to  pre 
cedent.  Finding  them  immovable,  Adams  was 
forced  to  apply  to  professional  usurers  and  Jew 
brokers,  from  whom,  after  three  weeks  of  per 
plexity  and  humiliation,  he  obtained  a  loan  at  ex 
orbitant  interest,  and  succeeded  in  meeting  the 
drafts.  It  was  only  too  plain,  as  he  mournfully 
confessed,  that  American  credit  was  dead.  Such 
were  the  trials  of  our  American  ministers  in  Europe 
in  the  dark  days  of  the  League  of  Friendship.  It 
was  not  a  solitary,  but  a  typical,  instance.  John 
Jay's  experience  at  the  unfriendly  court  of  Spain 
was  perhaps  even  more  trying. 

European  governments  might  treat  us  with  cold 
disdain,  and  European  bankers  might  pronounce 
our  securities  worthless,  but  there  was  one  quarter 
of  the  world  from  which  even  worse  measure  was 
rneted  out  to  us.  Of  all  the  barbarous  communi 
ties  with  which  the  civilized  world  has  had  to  deal 
in  modern  times,  perhaps  none  have  made  so  much 
trouble  as  the  Mussulman  states  on  the  southern 
shore  of  the  Mediterranean.  After  the  breaking 
up  of  the  great  Moorish  kingdoms  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  this  region  had  fallen  under  the  nominal 
control  of  the  Turkish  sultans  as  lords  paramount 
^f  the  orthodox  Mohammedan  world.  Its  miser- 


153        DRIFTING   TOWARD  ANARCHY. 

able  populations  became  the  prey  of  banditti. 
Swarms  of  half -savage  chieftains  settled  down  upon 

TheBarbary       tn6    ^an(^    ^6    l°custs»    and    Out    of    Such 

pirates.  a  pandemonium  of  robbery  and  murder 

as  has  scarcely  been  equalled  in  historic  times  the 
pirate  states  of  Morocco  and  Algiers,  Tunis  and 
Tripoli,  gradually  emerged.  Of  these  communities 
history  has  not  one  good  word  to  say.  In  these 
fair  lands,  once  illustrious  for  the  genius  and  vir 
tues  of  a  Hannibal  and  the  profound  philosophy  of 
St.  Augustine,  there  grew  up  some  of  the  most  ter 
rible  despotisms  ever  known  to  the  world.  The 
things  done  daily  by  the  robber  sovereigns  were 
such  as  to  make  a  civilized  imagination  recoil  with 
horror.  One  of  these  cheerful  creatures,  who 
reigned  in  the  raid^Je^  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
and  was  called  ^luley  Abdallah,  especially  prided 
himself  on  his  peculiar  skill  in  mounting  a  horse. 
Resting  his  left  hand  upon  the  horse's  neck,  as  he 
spfang~~into  the  saddle  he  simultaneously  swung 
the  sharp  scimiter  in  his  right  hand  so  deftly  as  to 
cut  off  the  head  of  the  groom  who  held  the  bridle. 
From  his  behaviour  in  these  sportive  moods  one 
may  judge  what  he  was  capable  of  on  serious  occa 
sions.  He  was  a  fair  sample  of  the  Barbary  mon- 
archs.  The  foreign  policy  of  these  wretches  was 
summed  up  in  piracy  and  blackmail.  Their  cor 
sairs  swept  the  Mediterranean  and  ventured  far 
out  upon  the  ocean,  capturing  merchant  vessels, 
and  murdering  or  enslaving  their  crews.  Of  the 
rich  booty,  a  fixed  proportion  was  paid  over  to  the 
robber  sovereign,  and  the  rest  was  divided  among 
the  gang.  So  lucrative  was  this  business  that  it 


DRIFTING  TOWARD  ANARCHY.         159 

attracted  hardy  ruffians  from  all  parts  of  Europe, 
and  the  misery  they  inflicted  upon  mankind  during 
four  centuries  was  beyond  calculation.  One  of 
their  favourite  practices  was  the  kidnapping  of 
eminent  or  wealthy  persons,  in  the  hope  of  extort- 
ing  ransom.  Cervantes  and  Vincent  de  Paul  were 
among  the  celebrated  men  who  thus  tasted  the  hor 
rors  of  Moorish  slavery;  but  it  was  a  calamity  that 
might  fall  to  the  lot  of  any  man  or  woman,  and  it 
was  but  rarely  that  the  victims  ever  regained  their 
freedom. 

Against  these  pirates  the  governments  of  Europe 
contended  in  vain.  Swift  cruisers  frequently  cap 
tured  their  ships,  and  from  the  days  of  Joan  of  Arc 
down  to  the  days  of  Napoleon  their  skeletons 
swung  from  long  rows  of  gibbets  on  all  the  coasts 
of  Europe,  as  a  terror  and  a  warning.  But  their 
losses  were  easily  repaired,  and  sometimes  they 
cruised  in  fleets  of  seventy  or  eighty  sail,  defying 
the  navies  of  England  and  France.  It  was  not  un 
til  after  England,  in  Nelson's  time,  had  acquired 
supremacy  in  the  Mediterranean  that  this  dreadful 
scourge  was  destroyed.  Americans,  however,  have 
just  ground  for  pride  in  recollecting  that  their 
government  was  foremost  in  chastising  these  pirates 
in  their  own  harbours.  The  exploits  of  our  little 
navy  in  the  Mediterranean  at  the  beginning  of  the 
present  century  form  an  interesting  episode  in 
American  history,  but  in  the  weak  days 

»  . ,       ^       f    ,         , .  American  citi- 

ot  the  Contederation  our  commerce  was  zens  kid- 
plundered  with  impunity,  and  American 
citizens  were  seized  and  sold  into  slavery  in   the 
markets  of  Algiers  and  Tripoli.     One  reason  for 


160       DRIFTING  TOWARD  ANARCHY. 

the  long  survival  of  this  villainy  was  the  low  state 
of  humanity  among  European  nations.  An  Eng 
lishman's  sympathy  was  but  feebly  aroused  by  the 
plunder  of  Frenchmen,  and  the  bigoted  Spaniard 
looked  on  with  approval  so  long  as  it  was  Protest 
ants  that  were  kidnapped  and  bastinadoed.  In 
1783  Lord  Sheffield  published  a  pamphlet  on 
the  commerce  of  the  United  States,  in  which  he 
shamelessly  declared  that  the  Barbary  pirates  were 
really  useful  to  the  great  maritime  powers,  because 
they  tended  to  keep  the  weaker  nations  out  of  their 
share  in  the  carrying  trade.  This,  he  thought,  was 
a  valuable  rjffset  to  the  Empress  Catherine's  device 
of  the  armed  neutrality,  whereby  small  nations 
were  protected ;  and  on  this  wicked  theory,  as 
Franklin  tells  us,  London  merchants  had  been 
heard  to  say  that  "  if  there  were  no  Algiers,  it 
would  be  worth  England's  while  to  build  one."  It 
was  largely  because  of  such  feelings  that  the  great 
states  of  Europe  so  long  persisted  in  the  craven 
policy  of  paying  blackmail  to  the  robbers,  instead 
of  joining  in  a  crusade  and  destroying  them. 

In  1786  Congress  felt  it  necessary  to  take  meas 
ures  for  protecting  the  lives  and  liberties  of  Amer 
ican  citizens.  The  person  who  called  himself  "  Em* 
peror  "  of  Morocco  at  that  time  was  different  from 
most  of  his  kind.  He  had  a  taste  for  reading,  and 
had  thus  caught  a  glimmering  of  the  enlightened 
liberalism  which  French  philosophers  were  preach 
ing.  He  wished  to  be  thought  a  benevolent  despot, 
and  with  Morocco,  accordingly,  Congress  succeeded 
in  making  a  treaty.  But  nothing  could  be  don( 
with  the  other  pirate  states  without  paying  bl 


DRIFTING   TOWARD  ANARCHY.        161 

mail.  Few  scenes  in  our  history  are  more  amus* 
ing,  or  more  irritating,  than  the  interview  of  John 
Adams  with  an  envoy  from  Tripoli  in  London. 
The  oily-tongued  barbarian,  with  his  soft  voice  and 
his  bland  smile,  asseverating  that  his  only  interest 
in  life  was  to  do  good  and  make  other  people  happy, 
stands  out  in  fine  contrast  with  the  blunt,  straight 
forward,  and  truthful  New  Englander ;  and  their 
conversation  reminds  one  of  the  old  story  of  Cceur- 
de-Lion  with  his  curtal-axe  and  Saladin  with  the 
blade  that  cut  the  silken  cushion.  Adams  felt  sure 
that  the  fellow  was  either  saint  or  devil,  but  could 
not  quite  tell  which.  The  envoy's  love  Tripoli  de- 
for  mankind  was  so  great  that  he  could  SSSf 
not  bear  the  thought  of  hostility  between  1786< 
the  Americans  and  the  Barbary  States,  and  he 
suggested  that  everything  might  be  happily  ar 
ranged  for  a  million  dollars  or  so.  Adams  thought 
it  better  to  fight  than  to  pay  tribute.  It  would  be 
cheaper  in  the  end,  as  well  as  more  manly.  At  the 
same  time,  it  was  better  economy  to  pay  a  million 
dollars  at  once  than  waste  many  times  that  sum  in 
war  risks  and  loss  of  trade.  But  Congress  could 
do  neither  one  thing  nor  the  other.  It  was  too 
poor  to  build  a  navy,  and  too  poor  to  buy  off  the 
pirates  ;  and  so  for  several  years  to  come  American 
ships  were  burned  and  American  sailors  enslaved 
with  utter  impunity.  With  the  memory  of  such 
wrongs  deeply  graven  in  his  heart,  it  was  natural 
that  John  Adams,  on  becoming  president  of  the 
United  States,  should  bend  his  energies  toward 
founding  a  strong  American  navy. 

A  government  touches  the  lowest  point  of  igno* 


162         DRIFTING   TOWARD  ANARCHY. 

miny  when  it  confesses  its  inability  to  protect  'the 
lives  and  property  of  its  citizens.  A  government 
congress  un-  which  has  come  to  this  has  failed  in  dis- 
SmericS°S  charging  the  primary  function  of  govern 
ment,  and  forthwith  ceases  to  have  any 
•reason  for  existing.  In  March,  1786,  Grayson 
wute  to  Madison  that  several  members  of  Congress 
thought  seriously  of  recommending  a  general  con 
vention  for  remodelling  the  government.  "  I  have 
not  made  up  my  mind,"  says  Grayson,  "  whether 
it  would  not  be  better  to  bear  the  ills  we  have  than 
fly  to  those  we  know  not  of.  I  am,  however,  in  no 
doubt  about  the  weakness  of  the  federal  government. 
If  it  remains  much  longer  in  its  present  state  of 
imbecility,  we  shall  be  one  of  the  most  contemptible 
nations  on  the  face  of  the  earth."  "  It  is  clear  to 
me  as  A,  B,  C,"  said  Washington,  "  that  an  exten 
sion  of  federal  powers  would  make  us  one  of  the 
most  happy,  wealthy,  respectable,  and  powerful  na 
tions  that  ever  inhabited  the  terrestrial  globe. 
Without  them  we  shall  soon  be  everything  which  is 
the  direct  reverse.  I  predict  the  worst  consequences 
from  a  half-starved,  limping  government,  always 
moving  upon  crutches  and  tottering  at  every  step." 
There  is  no  telling  how  long  the  wretched  state 
of  things  which  followed  the  Revolution  might 
have  continued,  had  not  the  crisis  been  precipi 
tated  by  the  wild  attempts  of  the  several  states  to 
remedy  the  distress  of  the  people  by  legislation. 
Financial  dis-  That  financial  distress  was  widespread 
tStSiit-  and  deep-seated  was  not  to  be  denied, 
icai  crisis.  ^  ^Q  beginning  of  the  war  the  amount 
of  accumulated  capital  in  the  country  had  been 


DRIFTING   TOWARD  ANARCHY.        163 

very  small.  The  great  majority  of  the  people  did 
little  more  than  get  from  the  annual  yield  of  their 
farms  or  plantations  enough  to  meet  the  current 
expenses  of  the  year.  Outside  of  agriculture  the 
chief  resources  were  the  carrying  trade,  the  ex 
change  of  commodities  with  England  and  the  West 
Indies,  and  the  cod  and  whale  fisheries ;  and  in 
these  occupations  many  people  had  grown  rich. 
The  war  had  destroyed  all  these  sources  of  revenue. 
Imports  and  exports  had  alike  been  stopped,  so  that 
there  was  a  distressing  scarcity  of  some  of  the  com 
monest  household  articles.  The  enemy's  navy  had 
kept  us  from  the  fisheries.  Before  the  war,  the 
dock-yards  of  Nantucket  were  ringing  with  the 
busy  sound  of  adze  and  hammer,  rope-walks  cov 
ered  the  island,  and  two  hundred  keels  sailed 
yearly  in  quest  of  spermaceti.  At  the  return  of 
peace,  the  docks  were  silent  and  grass  grew  in  the 
streets.  The  carrying  trade  and  the  fisheries  began 
soon  to  revive,  but  it  was  some  years  before  the 
old  prosperity  was  restored.  The  war  had  also 
wrought  serious  damage  to  agriculture,  and  in  some 
parts  of  the  country  the  direct  destruction  of  prop 
erty  by  the  enemy's  troops  had  been  very  great. 
To  all  these  causes  of  poverty  there  was  added  the 
hopeless  confusion  due  to  an  inconvertible  paper 
currency.  The  worst  feature  of  this  financial  de 
vice  is  that  it  not  only  impoverishes  people,  but  be- 
muddles  their  brains  by  creating  a  false  and  fleet 
ing  show  of  prosperity.  By  violently  disturbing 
apparent  values,  it  always  brings  on  an  era  of  wild 
speculation  and  extravagance  in  living,  followed  by 
sudden  collapse  and  protracted  suffering.  In  such 


164         DRIFTING   TOWARD  ANARCHY. 

crises  the  poorest  people,  those  who  earn  theii 
bread  by  the  sweat  of  their  brows  and  have  no 
margin  of  accumulated  capital,  always  suffer  the 
most.  Above  all  men,  it  is  the  labouring  man  who 
needs  sound  money  and  steady  values.  "We  have 
seen  all  these  points  amply  illustrated  since  the 
War  of  Secession.  After  the  War  of  Indepen 
dence,  when  the  margin  of  accumulated  capital  was 
so  much  smaller,  the  misery  was  much  greater. 
While  the  paper  money  lasted  there  was  marked 
extravagance  in  living,  and  complaints  were  loud 
against  the  speculators,  especially  those  who  oper 
ated  in  bread-stuffs.  Washington  said  he  would 
like  to  hang  them  all  -on  a  gallows  higher  than  that 
of  Haman  ;  but  they  were,  after  all,  but  the  inevi 
table  products  of  this  abnormal  state  of  things,  and 
the  more  guilty  criminals  were  the  demagogues  who 
went  about  preaching  the  doctrine  that  the  poor 
man  needs  cheap  money.  After  the  collapse  of 
this  continental  currency  in  1780,  it  seemed  as  if 
there  were  no  money  in  the  country,  and  at  the 
peace  the  renewal  of  trade  with  England  seemed  at 
first  to  make  matters  worse.  The  brisk  importa 
tion  of  sorely  needed  manufactured  goods,  which 
then  began,  would  naturally  have  been  paid  for  in 
the  south  by  indigo,  rice,  and  tobacco,  in  the  mid 
dle  states  by  exports  of  wheat  and  furs,  and  in 
New  England  by  the  profits  of  the  fisheries,  the 
shipping,  and  the  West  India  trade.  But  in  the 
southern  and  middle  states  the  necessary  revival 
of  agriculture  could  not  be  effected  in  a  moment, 
and  British  legislation  against  American  shipping 
and  the  West  India  trade  fell  with  crippling  force 


DRIFTING    TOWARD  ANARCHY.        165 

upon  New  England.  Consequently,  we  had  little 
else  but  specie  with  which  to  pay  for  imports,  and 
the  country  was  soon  drained  of  what  little  specie 
there  was.  In  the  absence  of  a  circulating  medium 
there  was  a  reversion  to  the  practice  of  barter,  and 
the  revival  of  business  was  thus  further  impeded. 
Whiskey  in  North  Carolina,  tobacco  in  Virginia, 
did  duty  as  measures  of  value  ;  and  Isaiah  Thomas, 
editor  of  the  Worcester  "  Spy,"  announced  that  he 
would  receive  subscriptions  for  his  paper  in  salt 
pork. 

It  is  worth  while,  in  this  connection,  to  observe 
what  this  specie  was,  the  scarcity  of  which  created 
so  much  embarrassment.  Until  1785  no  national 
coinage  was  established,  and  none  was  issued  until 
1793.  English,  French,  Spanish,  and  German 
coins,  of  various  and  uncertain  value,  passed  from 
hand  to  hand.  Beside  the  ninepences  stateofthe 
and  fourpence-ha'-pennies,  there  were  coina»e- 
bits  and  half-bits,  pistareens,  picayunes,  and  fips. 
Of  gold  pieces  there  were  the  Johannes,  or  joe,  the 
doubloon,  the  moidore,  and  pistole,  with  English 
and  French  guineas,  carolins,  ducats,  and  chequins. 
Of  coppers  there  were  English  pence  and  half 
pence  an  1  French  sous  ;  and  pennies  were  issued 
at  local  mints  in  Vermont,  Massachusetts,  Connect 
icut,  New  Jersey,  and  Pennsylvania.  The  Eng 
lish  shilling  had  everywhere  degenerated  in  value, 
but  differently  in  different  localities;  and  among 
silver  pieces  the  Spanish  dollar,  from  Louisiana 
and  Cuba,  had  begun  to  supersede  it  as  a  measure 
of  value.  In  New  England  the  shilling  had  sunk 
from  nearly  one  fourth  to  one  sixth  of  a  dollar ;  in 


166         DRIFTING   TOWARD  ANARCHY. 

New  York  to  one  eighth  ;  in  North  Carolina  to  one 
tenth.  It  was  partly  for  this  reason  that  in  devis- 
vug  a  national  coinage  the  more  uniform  dollar  was 
adopted  as  the  unit.  At  the  same  time  the  decimal 
system  of  division  was  adopted  instead  of  the  cum 
brous  English  system,  and  the  result  was  our  pres° 
ent  admirably  simple  currency,  which  we  owe  to 
Gouverneur  Morris,  aided  as  to  some  points  by 
Thomas  Jefferson.  During  the  period  of  the  Con 
federation,  the  chaotic  state  of  the  currency  was  a 
serious  obstacle  to  trade,  and  it  afforded  endless 
opportunities  for  fraud  and  extortion.  Clipping 
and  counterfeiting  were  carried  to  such  lengths 
that  every  moderately  cautious  person,  in  taking 
payment  in  hard  cash,  felt  it  necessary  to  keep  a 
small  pair  of  scales  beside  him  and  carefully  weigh 
each  coin,  after  narrowly  scrutinizing  its  stamp  and 
deciphering  its  legend. 

In  view  of  all  these  complicated  impediments  to 
business  on  the  morrow  of  a  long  and  costly  war, 
it  was  not  strange  that  the  whole  country  was  in 
some  measure  pauperized.  The  cost  of  the  war, 
estimated  in  cash,  had  been  about  1170,000,000  — - 
a  huge  sum  if  we  consider  the  circumstances  of  the 

country  at  that  time.  To  meet  this  crush- 
Cost  of  the  .  .11  i  TIT  TTM1 

war;  Robert     ing  indebtedness  Mr.  Hildreth  reckons 

Morris  and  his          °  •        i     i 

immense  ser-     the  total  amount  raised  by  the  states, 

vices.  J 

whether  by  means  of  repudiated  paper 
)r  of  taxes,  down  to  1784,  as  not  more  than  $30,- 
000,000.  No  wonder  if  the  issue  of  such  a  strug 
gle  seemed  quite  hopeless.  In  many  parts  of  the 
country,  by  the  year  1786,  the  payment  of  taxes 
had  come  to  be  regarded  as  an  amiable  eccentri- 


DRIFTING   TOWARD  ANARCHY.        167 

city.  At  one  moment,  early  in  1782,  there  was  not 
a  single  dollar  in  the  treasury.  That  the  gov 
ernment  had  in  any  way  been  able  to  finish  the 
war,  after  the  downfall  of  its  paper  money,  was  due 
to  the  gigantic  efforts  of  one  great  man,  —  Robert 
Morris,  of  Pennsylvania.  This  statesman  was 
born  in  England,  but  he  had  come  to  Philadelphia 
in  his  boyhood,  and  had  amassed  an  enormous  for 
tune,  which  he  devoted  without  stint  to  the  service 
of  his  adopted  country.  Though  opposed  to  the 
Declaration  of  Independence  as  rash  and  prema 
ture,  he  had,  nevertheless.,  signed  his  name  to  that 
document,  and  scarcely  any  one  had  contributed 
more  to  the  success  of  the  war.  It  was  he  who 
supplied  the  money  which  enabled  Washington  to 
complete  the  great  campaign  of  Trenton  and 
Princeton.  In  1781  he  was  made  superintendent 
of  finance,  and  by  dint  of  every  imaginable  device 
of  hard-pressed  ingenuity  he  contrived  to  support 
the  brilliant  work  which  began  at  the  Cowpens 
and  ended  at  Yorktown.  He  established  the  Bank 
of  North  America  as  an  instrument  by  which  gov 
ernment  loans  might  be  negotiated.  Sometimes 
his  methods  were  such  as  doctors  call  heroic,  as 
when  he  made  sudden  drafts  upon  our  ministers  in 
Europe  after  the  manner  already  described.  In 
every  dire  emergency  he  was  Washington's  chief 
reliance,  and  in  his  devotion  to  the  common  weal 
he  drew  upon  his  private  resources  until  he  became 
poor  ;  and  in  later  years  —  for  shame  be  it  said  — 
an  ungrateful  nation  allowed  one  of  its  noblest  and 
most  disinterested  champions  to  languish  in  a  debt 
or's  prison.  It  was  of  ill  omen  for  the  fortunes  of 


168         DRIFTING   TOWARD  ANARCHY. 

the  weak  and  disorderly  Confederation  that  in  1784, 
after  three  years  of  herculean  struggle  with  impos 
sibilities,  this  stout  heart  and  sagacious  head  could 
no  longer  weather  the  storm.  The  task  of  creating 
wealth  out  of  nothing  had  become  too  arduous  and 
too  thankless  to  be  endured.  Robert  Morris  re 
signed  his  place,  and  it  was  taken  by  a  congres 
sional  committee  of  finance,  under  whose  manage 
ment  the  disorders  only  hurried  to  a  crisis. 

By  1786,  under  the  universal  depression  and 
want  of  confidence,  all  trade  had  well-nigh  stopped, 
and  political  quackery,  with  its  cheap  and  dirty 
remedies,  had  full  control  of  the  field.  In  the  very 
face  of  miseries  so  plainly  traceable  to  the  deadly 
paper  currency,  it  may  seem  strange  that  people 
should  now  have  begun  to  clamour  for  a  renewal 
of  the  experiment  which  had  worked  so  much  evil. 
Yet  so  it  was.  As  starving  men  are  said  to  dream 
of  dainty  banquets,  so  now  a  craze  for 
pa^r-^ney7  fictitious  wealth  in  the  shape  of  paper 
money  ran  like  an  epidemic  through  the 
country.  There  was  a  Barmecide  feast  of  economic 
vagaries  ;  only  now  it  was  the  several  states  that 
sought  to  apply  the  remedy,  each  in  its  own  way. 
And  when  we  have  threaded  the  maze  of  this  rash 
legislation,  we  shall  the  better  understand  that 
clause  in  our  federal  constitution  which  forbids  the 
making  of  laws  impairing  the  obligation  of  con 
tracts.  The  events  of  1786  impressed  upon  men's 
minds  more  forcibly  than  ever  the  wretched  and 
disorderly  condition  of  the  country,  and  went  far 
toward  calling  into  existence  the  needful  popular 
sentiment  in  favour  of  an  overruling  central  govern, 
ment. 


DRIFTING   TOWARD  ANARCHY.        169 

The  disorders  assumed  very  different  forms  in 
the  different  states,  and  brought  out  a  great  diver 
sity  of  opinion  as  to  the  causes  of  the  distress  and 
the  efficacy  of  the  proposed  remedies.  Only  two 
states  out  of  the  thirteen  —  Connecticut  and  Dela 
ware —  escaped  the  infection,  but,  on  the  other 
hand,  it  was  only  in  seven  states  that  the  paper 
money  party  prevailed  in  the  legislatures.  North 
Carolina  issued  a  large  amount  of  paper,  and,  in 
order  to  get  it  into  circulation  as  quickly  as  possi 
ble,  the  state  government  proceeded  to  buy  tobacco 
with  it,  paying  double  the  specie  value  of  the  to 
bacco.  As  a  natural  consequence,  the  paper  dollar 
instantly  fell  to  seventy  cents,  and  went  on  declin 
ing.  In  South  Carolina  an  issue  was  tried  some 
what  more  cautiously,  but  the  planters 

J '  .         Agitation  in 

soon  refused  to  take  the  paper  at  its  southern  and 

.  middle  states. 

face  value.  Coercive  measures  were 
then  attempted.  Planters  and  merchants  were 
urged  to  sign  a  pledge  not  to  discriminate  between 
paper  and  gold,  and  if  any  one  dared  refuse  the 
fanatics  forthwith  attempted  to  make  it  hot  for 
him.  A  kind  of  "  Kuklux  "  society  was  organized 
at  Charleston,  known  as  the  "  Hint  Club."  Its 
purpose  was  to  hint  to  such  people  that  they  had 
better  look  out.  If  they  did  not  mend  their  ways, 
it  was  unnecessary  to  inform  them  more  explicitly 
what  they  might  expect.  Houses  were  combustible 
theu  as  now,  and  the  use  of  firearms  was  well  un 
derstood.  In  Georgia  the  legislature  itself  at 
tempted  coercion.  Paper  money  was  made  a  legal 
tender  in  spite  of  strong  opposition,  and  a  law  was 
passed  prohibiting  any  planter  or  merchant  from 


170         DRIFTING   TOWARD  ANARCHY. 

exporting  any  produce  without  taking  affidavit  that 
he  had  never  refused  to  receive  this  scrip  at  its  full 
face  value.  But  somehow  people  found  that  the 
more  it  was  sought  to  keep  up  the  paper  by  dint  of 
threats  and  forcing  acts,  the  faster  its  value  fell. 
Virginia  had  issued  bills  of  credit  during  the  cam^ 
paign  of  1781,  but  it  was  enacted  at  the  same  time 
that  they  should  not  be  a  legal  tender  after  the 
next  January.  The  influence  of  Washington, 
Madison,  and  Mason  was  effectively  brought  to 
bear  in  favour  of  sound  currency,  and  the  people  of 
Virginia  w^re  but  slightly  affected  by  the  craze  of 
1786.  In  the  autumn  of  that  year  a  proposition 
from  two  counties  for  an  issue  of  paper  was  de 
feated  in  the  legislature  by  a  vote  of  eighty-five  to 
seventeen,  and  no  more  was  heard  of  the  matter. 
In  Maryland,  after  a  very  obstinate  fight,  a  rag 
money  bill  was  carried  in  the  house  of  representa 
tives,  but  the  senate  threw  it  out ;  and  the  meas 
ure  was  thus  postponed  until  the  discussion  over 
the  federal  constitution  superseded  it  in  popular  in 
terest.  Pennsylvania  had  warily  begun  in  May, 
1785,  to  issue  a  million  dollars  in  bills  of  credit, 
which  were  not  made  a  legal  tender  for  the  pay 
ment  of  private  debts.  They  were  mainly  loaned 
to  farmers  on  mortgage,  and  were  received  by  the 
state  as  an  equivalent  for  specie  in  the  payment 
of  taxes.  By  August,  1786,  even  this  carefully 
guarded  paper  had  fallen  some  twelve  cents  below 
par,  —  not  a  bad  showing  for  such  a  year  as  that. 
New  York  moved  somewhat  less  cautiously.  A 
million  dollars  were  issued  in  bills  of  credit  receiv 
able  for  the  custom-house  duties,  which  were  then 


DRIFTING   TOWARD  ANARCHY.        171 

paid  into  the  state  treasury ;  and  these  bills  were 
made  a  legal  tender  for  all  money  received  in  law 
suits.  At  the  same  time  the  New  Jersey  legisla 
ture  passed  a  bill  for  issuing  half  a  million  paper 
dollars,  to  be  a  legal  tender  in  all  business  trans 
actions.  The  bill  was  vetoed  by  the  governor  in 
council.  The  aged  Governor  Livingston  was 
greatly  respected  by  the  people  ;  and  so  the  mob  at 
Elizabethtown,  which  had  duly  planted  a  stake  and 
dragged  his  effigy  up  to  it,  refrained  from  inflict 
ing  the  last  indignities  upon  the  image,  and  burned 
that  of  one  of  the  members  of  the  council  instead. 
At  the  next  session  the  governor  yielded,  and  the 
rag  money  was  issued.  But  an  unforeseen  diffi 
culty  arose.  Most  of  the  dealings  of  New  Jersey 
people  were  in  the  cities  of  New  York  and  Phila 
delphia,  and  in  both  cities  the  merchants  refused 
their  paper,  so  that  it  speedily  became  worthless. 

The  business  of  exchange  was  thus  fast  getting 
into  hopeless  confusion.  It  has  been  said  of  Brad- 
shaw's  Railway  Guide,  the  indispensable  compan 
ion  of  the  traveller  in  England,  that  no  man  can 
study  it  for  an  hour  without  qualifying  himself  for 
an  insane  asylum.  But  Bradshaw  is  pellucid  clear 
ness  compared  with  the  American  tables"  of  ex 
change  in  1786,  with  their  medley  of  dollars  and 
shillings,  moidores  and  pistareens.  The  addition 
of  half  a  dozen  different  kinds  of  paper  created 
such  a  labyrinth  as  no  human  intellect  could  ex 
plore.  No  wonder  that  men  were  counted  wise  who 
preferred  to  take  whiskey  and  pork  instead.  No 
body  who  had  a  yard  of  cloth  to  sell  could  tell  how 
much  it  was  worth.  But  even  worse  than  all  tliia 


172         DRIFTING   TOWARD  ANARCHY. 

was  the  swift  and  certain  renewal  of  bankruptcy 
which  so  many  states  were  preparing  for  them* 
selves. 

Nowhere  did  the  warning  come  so  quickly  or  so 
sharply  as  in  New  England.  Connecticut,  indeed, 
as  already  observed,  came  off  scot-free.  She  had 
issued  a  little  paper  money  soon  after  the  battle 
of  Lexington,  but  had  stopped  it  about  the  time 
of  the  surrender  of  Burgoyne.  In  1  780  she  had 
wisely  and  summarily  adjusted  all  relations  be 
tween  debtor  and  creditor,  and  the  crisis  of  1786 
found  her  people  poor  enough,  no  doubt,  but  able 
to  wait  for  better  times  and  indisposed  to  adopt 
violent  remedies.  It  was  far  otherwise  in  Rhode 
Island  and  Massachusetts.  These  were  preemi- 
DistressinNew  nently  the  maritime  states  of  the  Union, 
England.  an(j  UpOn  them  the  blows  aimed  by  Eng 
land  at  American  commerce  had  fallen  most  se 
verely.  It  was  these  two  maritime  states  that  suf 
fered  most  from  the  cutting  down  of  the  carrying 
trade  and  the  restriction  of  intercourse  with  the 
West  Indies.  These  things  worked  injury  to  ship 
building,  to  the  exports  of  lumber  and  oil  and 
salted  fish,  even  to  the  manufacture  of  Medford 
rum.  Nowhere  had  the  normal  machinery  of  busi 
ness  been  thrown  out  of  gear  so  extensively  as  in 
these  two  states,  and  in  Rhode  Island  there  was 
the  added  disturbance  due  to  a  prolonged  occupa 
tion  by  the  enemy's  troops.  Nowhere,  perhaps, 
was  there  a  larger  proportion  of  the  population  in 
debt,  and  in  these  preeminently  commercial  com- 
munities  private  debts  were  a  heavier  burden  and 
involved  more  personal  suffering  than  in  the  some- 


DRIFTING  TOWARD  ANARCHY.        173 

what  patriarchal  system  of  life  in  Virginia  or 
South  Carolina.  In  the  time  of  which  we  are  now 
treating,  imprisonment  for  debt  was  common. 
High-minded  but  unfortunate  men  were  carried  to 
jail,  and  herded  with  thieves  and  ruffians  in  loath 
some  dungeons,  for  the  crime  of  owing  a  hundred 
dollars  which  they  could  not  promptly  pay.  Under 
such  circumstances,  a  commercial  disturbance,  in 
volving  widespread  debt,  entailed  an  amount  of 
personal  suffering  and  humiliation  of  which,  in 
these  kinder  days,  we  can  form  no  adequate  con 
ception.  It  tended  to  make  the  debtor  an  outlaw, 
ready  to  entertain  schemes  for  the  subversion  of 
society.  In  the  crisis  of  1786,  the  agitation  in 
Rhode  Island  and  Massachusetts  reached  white 
heat,  and  things  were  done  which  alarmed  the 
whole  country.  But  the  course  of  events  was  dif 
ferent  in  the  two  states.  In  Rhode  Island  the  agi 
tators  obtained  control  of  the  government,  and  the 
result  was  a  paroxysm  of  'tyranny.  In  Massachu 
setts  the  agitators  failed  to  secure  control  of  the 
government,  and  the  result  was  a  paroxysm  of  re 
bellion. 

The  debates  over  paper  money  in  the  Rhode  Isl 
and  legislature  began  in  1785,  but  the  advocates 
of  a  sound  currency  were  victorious.  These  men 
were  roundly  abused  in  the  newspapers,  and  in  the 
next  spring  election  most  of  them  lost  their  seats. 
The  legislature  of  1786  showed  an  overwhelming 
majority  in  favor  of  paper  money.  The  farmers 
from  the  inland  towns  were  unanimous  in  support 
ing  the  measure.  They  could  not  see  the  difference 
between  the  state  making  a  dollar  out  of  paper  and 


174          DRIFTING   TOWARD  ANARCHY*. 

a  dollar  out  of  silver.  The  idea  that  the  value  did 
not  lie  in  the  government  stamp  they  dismissed  as 
an  idle  crotchet,  a  wire-drawn  theory,  worthy  only 
of  "  literary  fellows."  What  they  could  see  was 
the  glaring  fact  that  they  had  no  money,  hard  or 
soft ;  and  they  wanted  something  that  would  sat 
isfy  their  creditors  and  buy  new  gowns  for  their 
wives,  whose  raiment  was  unquestionably  the  worse 
for  wear.  On  the  other  hand,  the  merchants  from 
seaports  like  Providence,  Newport,  and  Bristol  un 
derstood  the  difference  between  real  money  and  the 
promissory  notes  of  a  bankrupt  government,  but 
they  were  in  a  hopeless  minority.  Half  a  million 
dollars  were  issued  in  scrip,  to  be  loaned  to  the 
farmers  on  a  mortgage  of  their  real  estate.  No 
one  could  obtain  the  scrip  without  giving  a  mort 
gage  for  twice  the  amount,  and  it  was  thought 
that  this  security  would  make  it  as  good  as  gold. 
But  the  depreciation  began  instantly.  When  the 
worthy  farmers  went  to  the  store  for  dry  goods  or 
sugar,  and  found  the  prices  rising  with  dreadful 
rapidity,  they  were  at  first  astonished,  and  then  en 
raged.  The  trouble,  as  they  truly  said,  was  with 
the  wicked  merchants,  who  would  not 
victorious  in  take  the  paper  dollars  at  their  face  value, 

Phode  Island; 

the  "Know      These  men  were  thus  thwarting  the  £0 v- 

Ye "  measures.  .  °  ° 

ernment,  and  must  be  punished.  An 
act  was  accordingly  hurried  through  the  legisla 
ture,  commanding  every  one  to  take  paper  as  an 
equivalent  for  gold,  under  penalty  of  five  hundred 
dollars  fine  and  loss  of  the  right  of  suffrage. 
The  merchants  in  the  cities  thereupon  shut  up 
their  shops.  During  the  summer  of  1786  all 


DRIFTING  TOWARD  ANARCHY.         175 

business  was  at  a  standstill  in  Newport  and  Prov 
idence,  except  in  the  bar-rooms.  There  and  about 
the  market-places  men  spent  their  time  angrily  dis 
cussing  politics,  and  scarcely  a  day  passed  without 
street-fights,  which  at  times  grew  into  riots.  In 
the  country,  too,  no  less  than  in  the  cities,  the  god 
dess  of  discord  reigned.  The  farmers  determined 
to  starve  the  city  people  into  submission,  and  they 
entered  into  an  agreement  not  to  send  any  produce 
into  the  cities  until  the  merchants  should  open  their 
shops  and  begin  selling  their  goods  for  paper  at  its 
face  value.  Not  wishing  to  lose  their  pigs  and  but 
ter  and  grain,  they  tried  to  dispose  of  them  in  Bos 
ton  and  New  York,  and  in  the  coast  towns  of  Con 
necticut.  But  in  all  these  places  their  proceedings 
had  awakened  such  lively  disgust  that  placards 
were  posted  in  the  taverns  warning  purchasers 
against  farm  produce  from  Rhode  Island.  Disap 
pointed  in  these  quarters,  the  farmers  threw  away 
their  milk,  used  their  corn  for  fuel,  and  let  their 
apples  rot  on  the  ground,  rather  than  supply  the 
detested  merchants.  Food  grew  scarce  in  Provi 
dence  and  Newport,  and  in  the  latter  city  a  mob  of 
sailors  attempted  unsuccessfully  to  storm  the  pro 
vision  stores.  The  farmers  were  threatened  with 
armed  violence.  Town-meetings  were  held  aD  over 
the  state,  to  discuss  the  situation,  and  how  long 
they  might  have  talked  to  no  purpose  none  can  say, 
when  all  at  once  the  matter  was  brought  into  court. 
A  cabinet-maker  in  Newport  named  Treveti  went 
into  a  meat-market  kept  by  one  John  Weeden,  and 
selecting  a  joint  of  meat,  offered  paper  in  payment. 
Weeden  refused  to  take  the  paper  excep*  at  a 


176         DRIFTING  TOWARD  ANARCHY. 

heavy  discount.  Trevett  went  to  bed  supperless, 
and  next  morning  informed  against  the  obstinate 
butcher  for  disobedience  to  the  forcing  act.  Should 
the  court  find  him  guilty,  it  would  be  a  good  spec 
ulation  for  Trevett,  for  half  of  the  five  hundred 
dollars  fine  was  to  go  to  the  informer.  Hard- 
money  men  feared  lest  the  court  might  prove  sub 
servient  to  the  legislature,  since  that  body  possessed 
the  power  of  removing  the  five  judges.  The  case 
was  tried  in  September  amid  furious  excitement. 
Huge  crowds  gathered  about  the  court-house  and 
far  down  the  street,  screaming  and  cheering  like  a 
crowd  on  the  night  of  a  presidential  election.  The 
judges  were  clear-headed  men,  not  to  be  brow 
beaten.  They  declared  the  forcing  act  unconstitu 
tional,  and  dismissed  the  complaint.  Popular 
wrath  then  turned  upon  them.  A  special  session 
of  the  legislature  was  convened,  four  of  the  judges 
were  removed,  and  a  new  forcing-act  was  prepared. 
This  act  provided  that  no  man  could  vote  at  elec 
tions  or  hold  any  office  without  taking  a  test  oath 
promising  -to  receive  paper  money  at  par.  But 
this  was  going  too  far.  Many  soft-money  men 
were  not  wild  enough  to  support  such  a  measure ; 
umong  the  farmers  there  were  some  who  had 
grown  tired  of  seeing  their  produce  spoiled  on  their 
hands  ;  and  many  of  the  richest  merchants  had  an 
nounced  their  intention  of  moving  out  of  the  state. 
The  new  forcing  act  accordingly  failed  to  pass,  and 
presently  the  old  one  was  repealed.  The  paper 
dollar  had  been  issued  in  May ;  in  November  it 
passed  for  sixteen  cents. 

These  outrageous  proceedings  awakened  disgust 


DRIFTING   TOWARD  ANARCHY.        177 

and  alarm  among  sensible  people  in  all  the  other 
states,  and  Rhode  Island  was  everywhere  reviled 
and  made  fun  of.  One  clause  of  the  forcing  act 
had  provided  that  if  a  debtor  should  offer  paper  to 
his  creditor  and  the  creditor  should  refuse  to  take 
it  at  par,  the  debtor  might  carry  his  rag  money  to 
court  and  deposit  it  with  the  judge  ;  and  the  judge 
must  thereupon  issue  a  certificate  discharging  the 
debt.  The  form  of  certificate  began  with  the 
words  "  Know  Ye,"  and  forthwith  the  unhappy  lit 
tle  state  was  nicknamed  Rogues'  Island,  the  home  , 
of  Know  Ye  men  and  Know  Ye  measures. 

While  the  scorn  of  the  people  was  thus  poured 
out  upon  Rhode  Island,  much  sympathy  was  felt 
for  the  government  of  Massachusetts,  which  was 
called  upon  thus  early  to  put  down  armed  rebellion. 
The  pressure  of  debt  was  keenly  felt  in  the  rural 
districts  of  Massachusetts.  It  is  esti- 

,  Ra?  moneyde- 

mated   that   the  private   debts   in   the  feated  in  Mas- 
state  amounted  to  some  $7,000,000,  and  theShaysiAsur. 

rection,  Aug. 

the  state  s  arrears  to  the  federal  gov-  nse-Feb. 
ernment  amounted  to  some  $7,000,000 
more.  Adding  to  these  sums  the  arrears  of  boun 
ties  due  to  the  soldiers,  and  the  annual  cost  of  the 
state,  county,  and  town  governments,  there  was 
reached  an  aggregate  equivalent  to  a  tax  of  more 
than  $50  on  every  man,  woman,  and  child  in  this 
population  of  379,000  souls.  Upon  every  head  of  a 
family  the  average  burden  was  some  $200  at  a  time 
when  most  farmers  would  have  thought  such  a  sum 
yearly  a  princely  income.  In  those  days  of  scar 
city  most  of  them  did  not  set  eyes  on  so  much  as 
$50  in  the  course  of  a  year,  and  happy  was  he  who 


178         DRIFTING   TOWARD  ANARCHY. 

had  tucked  away  two  or  three  golden  guineas  OP 
moidores  in  an  old  stocking,  and  sewed  up  the 
treasure  in  his  straw  mattress  or  hidden  it  behind 
the  bricks  of  the  chimney-piece.  Under  such  cir 
cumstances  the  payment  of  debts  and  taxes  was 
out  of  the  question;  and  as  the  same  state  of 
things  made  creditors  clamorous  and  ugly,  the 
courts  were  crowded  with  lawsuits.  The  lawyers 
usually  contrived  to  get  their  money  by  exacting 
retainers  in  advance,  and  the  practice  of  cham 
perty  was  common,  whereby  the  lawyer  did  his 
work  in  consideration  of  a  percentage  on  the  sum 
which  was  at  last  forcibly  collected.  Homesteads 
were  sold  for  the  payment  of  foreclosed  mortgages, 
cattle  were  seized  in  distrainer,  and  the  farmer 
himself  was  sent  to  jail.  The  smouldering  fires  of 
wrath  thus  kindled  found  expression  in  curses 
aimed  at  lawyers,  judges,  and  merchants.  The 
wicked  merchants  bought  foreign  goods  and 
drained  the  state  of  specie  to  pay  for  them,  while 
they  drank  Madeira  wine  and  dressed  their  wives 
in  fine  velvets  and  laces.  So  said  the  farmers ; 
and  city  ladies,  far  kinder  than  these  railerss 
deemed  them,  formed  clubs,  of  which  the  members 
pledged  themselves  to  wear  homespun,  —  a  poor 
palliative  for  the  deep-seated  ills  of  the  time.  In 
such  mood  were  many  of  the  villagers  when  in  the 
summer  of  1786  they  were  overtaken  by  the  craze 
for  paper  money.  At  the  meeting  of  the  legisla 
ture  in  May,  a  petition  came  in  from  Bristol 
County,  praying  for  an  issue  of  paper.  The  peti 
tioners  admitted  that  such  money  was  sure  to  de 
teriorate  in  value,  and  they  doubted  the  wisdom  of 


DRIFTING   TOWARD  ANARCHY.        179 

trying  to  keep  it  up  by  forcing  acts.  Instead  of 
this  they  would  have  the  rate  of  its  deterioration 
regulated  by  law,  so  that  a  dollar  might  be  worth 
ninety  cents  to-day,  and  presently  seventy  cents, 
and  by  and  by  fifty  cents,  and  so  on  till  it  should 
go  down  to  zero  and  be  thrown  overboard.  People 
would  thus  know  what  to  expect,  and  it  would  be 
all  right.  The  delicious  na'ivetS  of  this  argument 
did  not  prevail  with  the  legislature  of  Massachu 
setts,  and  soft  money  was  frowned  down  by  a  vote 
of  ninety-nine  to  nineteen.  Then  a  bill  was 
brought  in  seeking  to  reestablish  in  legislation  the 
ancient  practice  of  barter,  and  make  horses  and 
cows  legal  tender  for  debts  ;  and  this  bill  was 
crushed  by  eighty-nine  votes  against  thirty-five. 
At  the  same  time  this  legislature  passed  a  bill  to 
strengthen  the  federal  government  by  a  grant  of 
supplementary  funds  to  Congress,  and  thus  laid  a 
further  burden  of  taxes  upon  the  people. 

There  was  an  outburst  of  popular  wrath.  A  con 
vention  at  Hatfield  in  August  decided  that  the 
court  of  common  pleas  ought  to  be  abolished,  that 
no  funds  should  be  granted  to  Congress,  and  that 
paper  money  should  be  issued  at  once.  Another 
convention  at  Lenox  denounced  such  incendiary 
measures,  approved  of  supporting  the  federal  gov 
ernment,  and  declared  that  no  good  could  come 
from  the  issue  of  paper  money.  But  meanwhile 
the  angry  farmers  had  resorted  to  violence.  The 
legislature,  they  said,  had  its  sittings  in  Boston, 
under  the  influence  of  wicked  lawyers  and  mer 
chants,  and  thus  could  not  be  expected  to  do  the 
will  of  the  people.  A  cry  went  up  that  henceforth 


ISO        DRIFTING   TOWARD  ANARCHY. 

the  law-makers  must  sit  in  some  small  inland  town, 
where  jealous  eyes  might  watch  their  proceedings. 
Meanwhile  the  lawyers  must  be  dealt  with ;  and 
at  Northampton,  Worcester,  Great  Barrington,  and 
Concord  the  courts  were  broken  up  by  armed 
mobs.  At  Concord  one  Job  Shattuck  brought  sev 
eral  hundred  armed  men  into  the  town  and  sur 
rounded  the  court-house,  while  in  a  fierce  harangue 
he  declared  that  the  time  had  come  for  wiping  out 
all  debts.  uYes,"  squeaked  a  nasal  voice  from 
the  crowd,  —  "  yes,  Job,  we  know  all  about  them 
two  farms  you  can't  never  pay  for ! "  But  this 
repartee  did  not  save  the  judges,  who  thought  it 
best  to  flee  from  the  town.  At  first  the  legislature 
deemed  it  wise  to  take  a  lenient  view  of  these  pro 
ceedings,  and  it  even  went  so  far  as  to  promise  to 
hold  its  next  session  out  of  Boston.  But  the  agi 
tation  had  reached  a  point  where  it  could  not  be 
stayed.  In  September  the  supreme  court  was  to 
sit  at  Springfield,  and  Governor  Bowdoin  sent  a 
force  of  600  militia  under  General  Shepard  to  pro 
tect  it.  They  were  confronted  by  some  600  insur 
gents,  under  the  leadership  of  Daniel  Shays.  This 
man  had  been  a  captain  in  the  Continental  army, 
and  in  his  force  were  many  of  the  penniless  veterans 
whom  Gates  would  fain  have  incited  to  rebellion  at 
Newburgh.  Shays  seems  to  have  done  what  he 
could  to  restrain  his  men  from  violence,  but  he  was 
a  poor  creature,  wanting  alike  in  courage  and  good 
faith.  On  the  other  hand  the  militia  were  lacking 
in  spirit.  After  a  disorderly  parley,  with  much 
cursing  and  swearing,  they  beat  a  retreat,  and  the 
court  was  prevented  from  sitting.  Fresh  riots  fol- 


DRIFTING   TOWARD  ANARCHY.        181 

lowed  at  Worcester  and  Concord.  A  regiment  of 
cavalry,  sent  out  by  the  governor,  scoured  Middle 
sex  County,  and,  after  a  short  fight  in  the  woods 
near  Groton,  captured  Job  Shattuck  and  dispersed 
his  men.  But  this  only  exasperated  the  insurgents. 
They  assembled  in  Worcester  to  the  number  of 
1,200  or  more,  where  they  lived  for  two  months  at 
free  quarters,  while  Shays  organized  and  drilled 
them. 

Meanwhile  the  habeas  corpus  act  was  sus 
pended  for  eight  months,  and  Governor  Bowdoin 
called  out  an  army  of  4,400  men,  who  were  placed 
under  command  of  General  Lincoln.  As  the  state 
treasury  was  nearly  empty,  some  wealthy  gentle 
men  in  Boston  subscribed  the  money  needed  for 
equipping  these  troops,  and  about  the  middle  of 
January,  1787,  they  were  collected  at  Worcester. 
The  rebels  had  behaved  shamefully,  burning  barns 
and  seizing  all  the  plunder  they  could  lay  hands 
on.  As  their  numbers  increased  they  found  their 
military  stores  inadequate,  and  accordingly  they 
marched  upon  Springfield,  with  the  intent  to  capture 
the  federal  arsenal  there,  and  provide  themselves 
with  muskets  and  cannon.  General  Shepard  held 
Springfield  with  1,200  men,  and  on  the  25th  of  Jan 
uary  Shays  attacked  him  with  a  force  of  somewhat 
more  than  2,000,  hoping  to  crush  him  and  seize  the 
arsenal  before  Lincoln  could  come  to  the  rescue. 
But  his  plan  of  attack  was  faulty,  and  as  soon  as  his 
men  began  falling  under  Shepard's  fire  a  panic 
seized  them,  and  they  retreated  in  disorder  to  Lud- 
low,  and  then  to  Amherst,  setting  fire  to  houses 
and  robbing  the  inhabitants.  On  the  approach  of 


182         DRIFTING   TOWARD  ANARCHY. 

Lincoln's  army,  three  days  later,  Shays  retreated 
to  Pelham,  and  planted  his  forces  on 

The     insurrec-  ,  .,, 

tion  suppressed    TWO  Steep  nillS    protected    at    the  bottom 

by  huge  snowdrifts.  Lincoln  advanced 
to  Hadley  and  sought  to  open  negotiations  with 
the  rebels.  They  were  reminded  that  a  contest 
with  the  state  government  was  hopeless,  and  that 
they  had  already  incurred  the  penalty  of  death ; 
but  if  they  would  now  lay  down  their  arms  and  go 
home,  a  free  pardon  could  be  obtained  for  them. 
Shays  seemed  willing  to  yield,  and  Saturday,  the 
3d  of  February,  was  appointed  for  a  conference 
between  some  of  the  leading  rebels  and  some  of 
the  officers.  But  this  was  only  a  stratagem.  Dur 
ing  the  conference  Shays  decamped  and  marched 
his  men  through  Prescott  and  North  Dana  to  Pe 
tersham.  Toward  nightfall  the  trick  was  discov 
ered,  and  Lincoln  set  his  whole  force  in  motion 
over  the  mountain  ridges  of  Shutesbury  and  New 
Salem.  The  day  had  been  mild,  but  during  the 
night  the  thermometer  dropped  below  zero  and  an 
icy,  cutting  snow  began  to  fall.  There  was  great 
suffering  during  the  last  ten  miles,  and  indeed  the 
whole  march  of  thirty  miles  in  thirteen  hours  over 
steep  and  snow-covered  roads  was  a  worthy  exploit 
for  these  veterans  of  the  Revolution.  Shays  and 
his  men  had  not  looked  for  such  a  display  of  en 
ergy,  and  as  they  were  getting  their  breakfast  on 
Sunday  morning  at  Petersham  they  were  taken  by 
surprise.  A  few  minutes  sufficed  to  scatter  them 
in  flight.  A  hundred  and  fifty,  including  Shays 
himself,  were  taken  prisoners.  The  rest  fled  in  all 
directions,  most  of  them  to  Athol  and  Northfield, 


DRIFTING    TOWARD  ANARCHY.        183 

whence  they  made  their  way  into  Vermont.  Gen 
eral  Lincoln  then  marched  his  troops  into  the 
mountains  of  Berkshire,  where  disturbances  still 
continued.  On  the  26th  of  February  one  Captain 
Hamlin,  with  several  hundred  insurgents,  plun 
dered  the  town  of  Stockbridge  and  carried  off  the 
leading  citizens  as  hostages.  He  was  pursued  as 
far  as  Sheffield,  defeated  there  in  a  sharp  skirmish, 
with  a  loss  of  some  thirty  in  killed  and  wounded, 
and  his  troops  scattered.  This  put  an  end  to  the 
insurrection  in  Massachusetts. 

During  the  autumn  similar  disturbances  had  oc 
curred  in  the  states  to  the  northward.  At  Exeter 
in  New  Hampshire  and  at  Windsor  and  Rutland 
in  Vermont  the  courts  had  been  broken  up  by 
armed  mobs,  and  at  Rutland  there  had  been  blood 
shed.  When  the  Shays  rebellion  was  put  down, 
Governor  Bowdoin  requested  the  neigh- 

,   \  .&         Conduct  of 

bouring  states  to  lend  their  aid  in  bring-  neighbouring 


ing  the  insurgents  to  justice,  and  all 
complied  with  the  request  except  Vermont  and 
Rhode  Island.  The  legislature  of  Rhode  Island 
sympathized  with  the  rebels,  and  refused  to  allow 
the  governor  to  issue  a  warrant  for  their  arrest. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  governor  of  Vermont  issued 
a  proclamation  out  of  courtesy  toward  Massachu 
setts,  but  he  caused  it  to  be  understood  that  this 
was  but  an  empty  form,  as  the  state  of  Vermont 
could  not  afford  to  discourage  immigration  !  A 
feeling  of  compassion  for  the  insurgents  was  widely 
spread  in  Massachusetts.  In  March  the  leaders 
were  tried,  and  fourteen  were  convicted  of  treason 
and  sentenced  to  death ;  but  Governor  Bowdoin, 


184         DRIFTING   TOWARD  ANARCHY. 

whose  term  was  about  to  expire,  granted  a  reprieve 
for  a  few  weeks.  At  the  annual  election  in  April 
the  candidates  for  the  governorship  were  Bowdoin 
and  Hancock,  and  it  was  generally  believed  that 
the  latter  would  be  more  likely  than  the  former  to 
pardon  the  convicted  men.  So  strong  was  this 
feeling  that,  although  much  gratitude  was  felt  to 
ward  Bowdoin,  to  whose  energetic  measures  the 
prompt  suppression  of  the  rebellion  was  due,  Han 
cock  obtained  a  large  majority.  When  the  ques 
tion  of  a  pardon  came  up  for  discussion,  Samuel 
Adams,  who  was  then  president  of  the  senate,  was 
strongly  opposed  to  it,  and  one  of  his  arguments 
was  very  characteristic.  "  In  monarchies,"  he 
said,  "  the  crime  of  treason  and  rebellion  may  ad 
mit  of  being  pardoned  or  lightly  punished  ;  but  the 
man  who  dares  to  rebel  against  the  laws  of  a  re 
public  ought  to  suffer  death."  This  was  Adams's 
sensitive  point.  He  wanted  the  whole  world  to 
realize  that  the  rule  of  a  republic  is  a  rule  of  law 
and  order,  and  that  liberty  does  not  mean  license. 
But  in  spite  of  this  view,  for  which  there  was  much 
to  be  said,  the  clemency  of  the  American  tempera 
ment  prevailed,  and  Governor  Hancock  pardoned 
all  the  prisoners. 

Nothing  in  the  history  of  these  disturbances  is 
more  instructive  than  the  light  incidentally  thrown 
upon  the  relations  between  Congress  and  the  state 
government.  Just  before  the  news  of  the  rout  at 
Petersham,  Samuel  Adams  had  proposed  in  the 
senate  that  the  governor  should  be  requested  to 
write  to  Congress  and  inform  that  body  of  what 
was  going  on  in  Massachusetts,  stating  that  "  al- 


DRIFTING   TOWARD  ANARCHY.        185 

though  the  legislature  are  firmly  persuaded  that 
.  .  .  in  all  probability  they  will  be  able  speedily 
and  effectively  to  suppress  the  rebellion,  yet,  if  any 
unforeseen  event  should  take  place  which  may  frus 
trate  the  measures  of  government,  they  rely  upon 
such  support  from  the  United  States  as  is  expressly 
and  solemnly  stipulated  by  the  articles  of  confeder 
ation."  A  resolution  to  this  effect  was  carried  in 
the  senate,  bnt  defeated  in  the  house  through  the 
influence  of  western  county  members  in  sympathy 
with  the  insurgents  ;  and  incredible  as  it  may  seem, 
the  argument  was  freely  used  that  it  was  incompat 
ible  with  the  dignity  of  Massachusetts  to  allow 
United  States  troops  to  set  foot  upon  her  soil. 
When  we  reflect  that  the  arsenal  at  Springfield, 
where  the  most  considerable  disturbance  occurred, 
was  itself  federal  property,  the  climax  of  absurdity 
might  seem  to  have  been  reached. 

It  was  left  for  Congress  itself,  however,  to  cap 
that  climax.  The  progress  of  the  insurrection  in 
the  autumn  in  Vermont,  New  Hampshire,  and  Mas 
sachusetts,  as  well  as  the  troubles  in  Rhode  Island, 
had  alarmed  the  whole  country.  It  was  feared 
that  the  insurgents  in  these  states  might  join 
forces,  and  in  some  way  kindle  a  flame 

Congress 

that  would  run  through  the  land.     Ac-  afraid  to  in- 
cordingly  Congress    in   October   called 
upon  the  states  for  a  continental  force,  but  did  not 
dare  to  declare  openly  what  it  was  to  be  used  for. 
It  was   thought  necessary  to  say  that  the  troops 
were  wanted  for  an  expedition  against  the  north 
western  Indians  !     National  humiliation  could  go 
no  further  than  such  a  confession,  on  the  part  o£ 


186          DRIFTING   TOWARD  ANARCHY. 

our  central  government,  that  it  dared  not  use  force 
in  defence  of  those  very  articles  of  confederation  to 
which  it  owed  its  existence.  Things  had  come  to 
such  a  pass  that  people  of  all  shades  of  opinion 
were  beginning  to  agree  upon  one  thing,  — that 
something  must  be  done,  and  done  quickly. 


CHAPTER  V. 

GERMS    OF   NATIONAL    SOVEREIGNTY. 

WHILE  the  events  we  have  heretofore  contem 
plated  seemed  to  prophesy  the  speedy  dissolution 
and  downfall  of  the  half-formed  American  Union, 
a  series  of  causes,  obscure  enough  at  first,  but 
emerging  gradually  into  distinctness  and  then  into 
prominence,  were  preparing  the  way  for  the  founda 
tion  of  a  national  sovereignty.  The  growth  of  this 
sovereignty  proceeded  stealthily  along  creation  of  a 

,  , .  ,,  ,  national  do- 

such  ancient  lines  ot  precedent  as  to  main  beyond 
take  ready  hold  of  people's  minds,  al-  ies! 
though  few,  if  any,  understood  the  full  purport  of 
what  they  were  doing.  Ever  since  the  days  when 
our  English  forefathers  dwelt  in  village  communi 
ties  in  the  forests  of  northern  Germany,  the  idea  of 
a  common  land  or  f  olkland  —  a  territory  belonging 
to  the  whole  community,  and  upon  which  new  com 
munities  might  be  organized  by  a  process  analogous 
to  what  physiologists  call  cell-multiplication  —  had 
been  perfectly  familiar  to  everybody.  Townships 
budded  from  village  or  parish  folkland  in  Mary 
land  and  Massachusetts  in  the  seventeenth  century, 
just  as  they  had  done  in  England  before  the  time 
of  Alfred.  The  critical  period  of  the  Revolution 
witnessed  the  repetition  of  this  process  on  a  gigan 
tic  scale.  It  witnessed  the  creation  of  a  national 


188    GERMS   OF  NATIONAL  SOVEREIGNTY. 

territory  beyond  the  Alleglianies,  —  an  enormous 
folkland  in  which  all  the  thirteen  old  states  had  a 
common  interest,  and  upon  which  new  and  deriva 
tive  communities  were  already  beginning  to  organ 
ize  themselves.  Questions  about  public  lands  are 
often  regarded  as  the  driest  of  historical  dead- 
wood.  Discussions  about  them  in  newspapers  and 
magazines  belong  to  the  class  of  articles  which  the 
general  reader  usually  skips.  Yet  there  is  a  great 
deal  of  the  philosophy  of  history  wrapped  up  in 
this  subject,  and  it  now  comes  to  confront  us  at 
a  most  interesting  moment ;  for  without  studying 
this  creation  of  a  national  domain  between  the 
Alleghanies  and  the  Mississippi,  we  cannot  under 
stand  how  our  Federal  Union  came  to  be  formed. 

When  England  began  to  contend  with  France 
and  Spain  for  the  possession  of  North  America,  she 
made  royal  grants  of  land  upon  this  continent,  in 
royal  ignorance  of  its  extent  and  configuration. 
But  until  the  Seven  Years'  War  the  eastward  and 
westward  partitioning  of  these  grants  was  of  little 
practical  consequence  ;  for  English  dominion  was 
bounded  by  the  Alleghanies,  and  everything  be 
yond  was  in  the  hands  of  the  French.  In  that 
most  momentous  war  the  genius  of  the  elder  Pitt 
won  the  region  east  of  the  Mississippi  for  men  of 
English  race,  while  the  vast  territory  of  Louisiana, 
beyond,  passed  under  the  control  of  Spain.  Dur 
ing  the  Revolutionary  War,  in  a  series  of  romantic 
expeditions,  the  state  of  Virginia  took  military  pos 
session  of  a  great  part  of  the  wilderness  east  of  the 
Mississippi,  founding  towns  in  the  Ohio  and  Cum 
berland  valleys,  and  occupying  with  garrisons  of 


GERMS   OF  NATIONAL  SOVEREIGNTY.    189 

her  state  militia  the  posts  at  Cahokia,  Kaskaskia, 
and  Vincennes.  We  have  seen  how,  through  the 
skill  of  our  commissioners  at  Paris,  this  noble  coun 
try  was  secured  for  the  Americans  in  the  treaty  of 
1783,  in  spite  of  the  reluctance  of  France  conflicting 
and  the  hostility  of  Spain.  Throughout  S^*^ 
the  Revolutionary  War  the  Americans  tory> 
claimed  the  territory  as  part  of  the  United  States ; 
but  when  once  it  passed  from  under  the  control  of 
Great  Britain,  into  whose  hands  did  it  go  ?  To 
whom  did  it  belong  ?  To  this  question  there  were 
various  and  conflicting  answers.  North  Carolina, 
indeed,  had  already  taken  possession  of  what  was 
afterward  called  Tennessee,  and  at  the  beginning 
of  the  war  Virginia,  had  annexed  Kentucky.  As 
to  these  points  there  could  be  little  or  no  dispute. 
But  with  the  territory  north  of  the  Ohio  River  it 
was  very  different.  Four  states  laid  claim  either 
to  the  whole  or  to  parts  of  this  territory,  and  these 
claims  were  not  simply  conflicting,  but  irreconcila 
ble. 

The  charters  of  Massachusetts  and  Connecticut 
were  framed  at  a  time  when  people  had  not  got  over 
the  notion  that  this  part  of  the  continent  was  not 
much  wider  than  Mexico,  and  accordingly  these 
colonies  had  received  the  royal  permission  to  ex 
tend  from  sea  to  sea.  The  existence  of  a  foreign 
colony  of  Dutchmen  in  the  neighbourhood  was  a 
trifle  about  which  these  documents  did 
not  trouble  themselves ;  but  when  sacimsettB  am, 
Charles  II.  conquered  this  colony  and 
bestowed  it  upon  his  brother,  the  province  of  New 
York  became  a  stubborn  fact,  which  could  not 


190    GERMS   OF  NATIONAL  SOVEREIGNTY. 

be  disregarded.  Massachusetts  and  Connecticut 
peaceably  settled  their  boundary  line  with  New 
York,  and  laid  no  claims  to  land  within  the  limits 
of  that  state;  but  they  still  continued  to  claim 
what  lay  beyond  it,  as  far  as  the  Mississippi  River, 
where  the  Spanish  dominion  now  began.  The  re 
gions  claimed  by  Massachusetts  have  since  become 
the  southern  halves  of  the  states  of  Michigan  and 
Wisconsin.  The  region  claimed  by  Connecticut 
was  a  narrow  strip  running  over  the  northern  por 
tions  of  Pennsylvania,  Ohio,  Indiana,  and  Illinois ; 
and  we  have  seen  how  much  trouble  was  occasioned 
in  Pennsylvania  by  this  circumstance. 

But  New  York  laughed  to  scorn  these  claims  of 
Claims  of  New  Connecticut.  In  the  seventeenth  cen 
tury  all  the  Algonquin  tribes  between 
Lake  Erie  and  the  Cumberland  Mountains  had 
become  tributary  to  the  Iroquois ;  and  during  the 
hundred  years'  struggle  between  France  and  Eng 
land  for  the  supremacy  of  this  continent  the  Iro 
quois  had  put  themselves  under  the  protection  of 
England,  which  thenceforth  always  treated  them 
as  an  appurtenance  to  New  York.  For  a  hundred 
years  before  the  Revolution,  said  New  York,  she 
had  borne  the  expense  of  protecting  the  Iroquois 
against  the  French,  and  by  various  treaties  she  had 
become  lawful  suzerain  over  the  Six  Nations  and 
their  lands  and  the  lands  of  their  Algonquin  vas 
sals.  On  such  grounds  New  York  claimed  pretty 
much  everything  north  of  the  Ohio  and  east  of  the 
Miami. 

But  according  to  Virginia,  it  made  little  differ 
ence  what  Massachusetts  and  Connecticut  and  New 


GERMS  OF  NATIONAL  SOVEREIGNTY.    191 

York  thought  about  the  matter,  for  every  acre  of 
land,  from  the  Ohio  Eiver  up  to  Lake  Superior, 
belonged  to  her.  Was  not  she  the  lordly  Virginia's 
"Old  Dominion,"  out  of  which  every  claims- 
one  of  the  states  had  been  carved  ?  Even  Cape 
Cod  and  Cape  Ann  were  said  to  be  in  "  North 
Virginia,"  until,  in  1614,  Captain  John  Smith  in 
vented  the  name  "  New  England."  It  was  a  fair 
presumption  that  any  uncarved  territory  belonged 
to  Virginia ;  and  it  was  further  held  that  the  orig 
inal  charter  of  1609  used  language  which  impli 
citly  covered  the  northwestern  territory,  though, 
as  Thomas  Paine  showed,  in  a  pamphlet  entitled 
"  Public  Good,"  this  was  very  doubtful.  But  be 
sides  all  this,  it  was  Virginia  that  had  actually 
conquered  the  disputed  territory,  and  held  every 
military  post  in  it  except  those  which  the  British 
had  not  surrendered ;  and  who  could  doubt  that 
possession  was  nine  points  in  the  law  ? 

Of  these  conflicting  claims,  those  of  New  York 
and  Virginia  were  the  most  grasping  and  the  most 
formidable,  because  they  concerned  a  region  into 
which  immigration  was  beginning  rapidly  to  pour. 
They  were  regarded  with  strong  disfavour  by  the 
small  states,  Rhode  Island,  New  Jersey,  Delaware, 
and  Maryland,  which  were  so  situated  that  they 
never  could  expand  in  any  direction.  They  looked 
forward  with  dread  to  a  future  in  which  New  York 
and  Virginia  might  wax  powerful 

,  .  .!•  n          Maryland's 

enough  to  tyrannize  over  their  smaller  novel  and  be. 
neighbours.      But    of    these   protesting   gesS!  Sft". 
states  it  was  only  Maryland  that  fairly 
rose  to  the  occasion,  and  suggested  an  idea  which 


192    GERMS   OF  NATIONAL  SOVEREIGNTY. 

seemed  startling  at  first,  but  from  which  mighty 
and  unforeseen  consequences  were  soon  to  follow.1 
It  was  on  the  15th  of  October,  1777,  just  two  days 
before  Burgoyne's  surrender,  that  this  path-break 
ing  idea  first  found  expression  in  Congress.  The 
articles  of  confederation  were  then  just  about  to  be 
presented  to  the  several  states  to  be  ratified,  and 
the  question  arose  as  to  how  the  conflicting  western 
claims  should  be  settled.  A  motion  was  then  made 
that  "  the  United  States  in  Congress  assembled 
shall  have  the  sole  and  exclusive  right  and  power 
to  ascertain  and  fix  the  western  boundary  of  such 
states  as  claim  to  the  Mississippi,  .  .  .  and  lay  out 
the  land  beyond  the  boundary  so  ascertained  into 
separate  and  independent  states,  from  time  to  time, 
as  the  numbers  and  circumstances  of  the  people 
may  require."  To  carry  out  such  a  motion,  it 
would  be  necessary  for  the  four  claimant  states 
to  surrender  their  claims  into  the  hands  of  the 
United  States,  and  thus  create  a  domain  which 
should  be  owned  by  the  confederacy  in  common. 
So  bold  a  step  towards  centralization  found  no  fa 
vour  at  the  time.  No  other  state  but  Maryland 
voted  for  it. 

But  Maryland's  course  was  well  considered  :  she 
pursued  it  resolutely,  and  was  rewarded  with  com 
plete  success.  By  February,  1779,  all  the  other 
states  had  ratified  the  articles  of  confederation.  In 
the  following  May,  Maryland  declared  that  she 

1  This  subject  has  been  treated  in  a  masterly  manner  by  Mr. 
H.  B.  Adams,  in  an  essay  on  Maryland's  Influence  upon  Land  Ces 
sions  to  the  United  States,  published  in  the  Third  Series  of  the 
admirable  Johns  Hopkins  University  Studies  in  History  and  Poll* 
tecs.  I  am  indebted  to  Mr.  Adams  for  many  valuable  suggestion^ 


GERMS   OF  NATIONAL  SOVEREIGNTY.    193 

would  not  ratify  the  articles  until  she  should  re 
ceive  some  definite  assurance  that  the  northwestern 
territory  should  become  the  common  property  of 
the  United  States,  "  subject  to  be  parcelled  out  by 
Congress  into  free,  convenient,  and  independent 
governments."  The  question,  thus  boldly  brought 
into  the  foreground,  was  earnestly  discussed  in  Con 
gress  and  in  the  state  legislatures,  until  in  Febru 
ary,  1780,  partly  through  the  influence  of  General 
Schuyler,  New  York  decided  to  cede  all  her  claims 
to  the  western  lands.  This  act  of  New  York  set 
things  in  motion,  so  that  in  September  Congress 
recommended  to  all  states  having  west-  The  8everai 
ern  claims  to  cede  them  to  the  United 
States.  In  October,  Congress,  still  pur- 
suing  the  Maryland  idea,  went  farther,  178°-85- 
and  declared  that  all  such  lands  as  might  be  ceded 
should  be  sold  in  lots  to  immigrants  and  the  money 
used  for  federal  purposes,  and  that  in  due  season 
distinct  states  should  be  formed  there,  to  be  ad 
mitted  into  the  Union,  with  the  same  rights  of  sov 
ereignty  as  the  original  thirteen  states.  As  an  in 
ducement  to  Virginia,  it  was  further  provided  that 
any  state  which  had  incurred  expense  during  the 
war  in  defending  its  western  possessions  should 
receive  compensation.  To  this  general  invitation 
Connecticut  immediately  responded  by  offering  to 
cede  everything  to  which  she  laid  claim,  except 
3,250,000  acres  on  the  southern  shore  of  Lake 
Erie,  which  she  wished  to  reserve  for  educational 
purposes.  Washington  disapproved  of  this  reser 
vation,  but  it  was  accepted  by  Congress,  though 
the  business  was  not  completed  until  1786.  This 


194    GERMS   OF  NATIONAL  SOVEREIGNTY. 

part  of  the  state  of  Ohio  is  still  commonly  spoken 
of  as  the  "  Connecticut  Reserve."  Half  a  million 
acres  were  given  to  citizens  of  Connecticut  whose 
property  had  been  destroyed  in  the  British  raids 
upon  her  coast  towns,  and  the  rest  were  sold,  in 
1795,  for  11,200,000,  in  aid  of  schools  and  colleges. 

In  January,  1781,  Virginia  offered  to  surrender 
all  the  territory  northwest  of  the  Ohio,  provided 
that  Congress  would  guarantee  her  in  the  possession 
of  Kentucky.  This  gave  rise  to  a  discussion  which 
lasted  nearly  three  years,  until  Virginia  withdrew 
her  proviso  and  made  the  cession  absolute.  It  was 
accepted  by  Congress  on  the  1st  of  March,  1784, 
and  on  the  19th  of  April,  in  the  following  year,  — 
the  tenth  anniversary  of  Lexington,  —  Massachu 
setts  surrendered  her  claims  ;  and  the  whole  north 
western  territory  —  the  area  of  the  great  states  of 
Michigan,  Wisconsin,  Illinois,  Indiana,  and  Ohio 
(excepting  the  Connecticut  Reserve)  —  thus  be 
came  the  common  property  of  the  half-formed 
nation.  Maryland,  however,  did  not  wait  for  this. 
As  soon  as  New  York  and  Virginia  had  become 
thoroughly  committed  to  the  movement,  she  ratified 
the  articles  of  confederation,  which  thus  went  into 
operation  on  the  1st  of  March,  1781. 

This  acquisition  of  a  common  territory  speedily 
led  to  results  not  at  all  contemplated  in  the  theory 
of  union  upon  which  the  articles  of  confederation 
were  based.  It  led  to  "  the  exercise  of  national 
sovereignty  in  the  sense  of  eminent  domain,"  as 
shown  in  the  ordinances  of  1784  and  1787,  and 
prepared  men's  minds  for  the  work  of  the  Federal 
Convention.  Great  credit  is  due  to  Maryland  for 


GERMS   OF  NATIONAL  SOVEREIGNTY.    195 

her  resolute  course  in  setting  in  motion  this  train 
of  events.  It  aroused  fierce  indignation  at  the 
time,  as  to  many  people  it  looked  unfriendly  to  the 
Union.  Some  hot-heads  were  even  heard  to  say 
that  if  Maryland  should  persist  any  longer  in  her 
refusal  to  join  the  confederation,  she  ought  to  be 
summarily  divided  up  between  the  neighbouring 
states,  and  her  name  erased  from  the  map.  But 
the  brave  little  state  had  earned  a  better  fate  than 
that  of  Poland.  When  we  have  come  to  trace  out 
the  results  of  her  action,  we  shall  see  that  just  as 
it  was  Massachusetts  that  took  the  decisive  step 
in  bringing  on  the  Revolutionary  War  when  she 
threw  the  tea  into  Boston  harbour,  so  it  was  Mary 
land  that,  by  leading  the  way  toward  the  creation 
of  a  national  domain,  laid  the  corner-stone  of  our 
Federal  Union.  Equal  credit  must  be  given  to  Vir 
ginia  for  her  magnanimity  in  making  the  desired 
surrender.  It  was  New  York,  indeed,  that  set  the 
praiseworthy  example;  but  New  York,  after  all, 
surrendered  only  a  shadowy  claim,  whereas  Vir 
ginia  gave  up  a  magnificent  and  princely  territory 
of  which  she  was  actually  in  possession.  She 
might  have  held  back  and  made  endless  Magnanimity 
trouble,  just  as,  at  the  beginning  of  the  of  T*&™- 
Revolution,  she  might  have  refused  to  make  com- 
mon  cause  with  Massachusetts ;  but  in  both  in 
stances  her  leading  statesmen  showed  a  far-sighted 
wisdom  and  a  breadth  of  patriotism  for  which  no 
words  of  praise  can  be  too  strong.  In  the  later 
instance,  as  in  the  earlier,  Thomas  Jefferson  played 
an  important  part.  He,  who  in  after  years,  as 
president  of  the  United  States,  was  destined,  by 


196    GERMS  OF  NATIONAL  SOVEREIGNTY. 

the  purchase  of  Louisiana,  to  carry  our  western 
frontier  beyond  the  Rocky  Mountains,  had,  in  1779, 
done  more  than  any  one  else  to  support  the  roman 
tic  campaign  in  which  General  Clark  had  taken 
possession  of  the  country  between  the  Alleghanies 
and  the  Mississippi.  He  had  much  to  do  with  the 
generous  policy  which  gave  up  the  greater  part  of 
that  country  for  a  national  domain,  and  on  the  very 
day  on  which  the  act  of  cession  was  completed  he 
presented  to  Congress  a  remarkable  plan  for  the  gov 
ernment  of  the  new  territory,  which  was  only  par 
tially  successful  because  it  attempted  too  much,  but 
the  results  of  which  were  in  many  ways  notable. 
^  In  this  plan,  known  as  the  Ordinance  of  1784, 
Jefferson  proposed  to  divide  the  northwestern  terri 
tory  into  ten  states,  or  just  twice  as  many  as  have 
actually  grown  out  of  it.  In  each  of  these  states 
the  settlers  might  establish  a  local  government, 
Jefferson  pro-  under  the  authority  of  Congress ;  and 
X? Jo8ver™t  when  in  any  one  of  them  the  population 
JEstatS"  should  come  to  equal  that  of  the  least 
tory,  1784.  populous  of  the  original  states,  it  might 
be  admitted  into  the  Union  by  the  consent  of  nine 
states  in  Congress.  The  new  states  were  to  have 
universal  suffrage ;  they  must  have  republican  forms 
of  government ;  they  must  pay  their  shares  of  the 
federal  debt ;  they  must  forever  remain  a  part  of 
the  United  States ;  and  after  the  year  1800  negro 
slavery  must  be  prohibited  within  their  limits. 
The  names  of  these  ten  states  have  afforded  much 
amusement  to  Jefferson's  biographers.  In  those 
days  the  schoolmaster  was  abroad  in  the  land  after 
a  peculiar  fashion.  Just  as  we  are  now  in  the  full 


GERMS   OF  NATIONAL  SOVEREIGNTY.    197 

tide  of  that  Gothic  revival  which  goes  back  for  its 
beginnings  to  Sir  Walter  Scott ;  as  we  admire  me 
diaeval  things,  and  try  to  build  our  houses  after  old 
English  models,  and  prefer  words  of  what  people 
call  "  Saxon  "  origin,  and  name  our  children  Ro 
land  and  Herbert,  or  Edith  and  Winifred,  so  our 
greatgrandfathers  lived  in  a  time  of  classical  re 
vival.  They  were  always  looking  for  precedents 
in  Greek  and  Roman  history ;  they  were  just  be 
ginning  to  try  to  make  their  wooden  houses  look 
like  temples,  with  Doric  columns  ;  they  preferred 
words  of  Latin  origin  ;  they  signed  their  pamphlets 
"  Brutus  "  and  "  Lycurgus,"  and  in  sober  earnest 
baptized  their  children  as  Csesar,  or  Marcellus,  or 
Darius.  The  map  of  the  United  States  was  just 
about  to  bloom  forth  with  towns  named  Ithaca  and 
Syracuse,  Corinth  and  Sparta ;  and  on  the  Ohio 
River,  opposite  the  mouth  of  Licking  Creek,  a  city 
had  lately  been  founded,  the  name  of  which  was 
truly  portentous.  "  Losantiville  "  was  this  wonder 
ful  compound,  in  which  the  initial  L  stood  for 
"  Licking,"  while  os  signified  "  mouth,"  anti  "  op 
posite,"  and  mile  "  town ;  "  and  the  whole  read 
backwards  as  "  Town-opposite-mouth-of-Licking." 
In  1790  General  St.  Clair,  then  governor  of  the 
northwest  territory,  changed  this  name  to  Cincin 
nati,  in  honor  of  the  military  order  to  which  he  be» 
longed.  With  such  examples  in  mind,  we  may  see 
that  the  names  of  the  proposed  ten  states,  from 
which  the  failure  of  Jefferson's  ordinance  has  de 
livered  us,  illustrated  the  prevalent  taste  of  the 
time  rather  than  any  idiosyncrasy  of  the  man.  The 
proposed  names  were  Sylvania,  Michigania,  Cher- 


198    GERMS  OF  NATIONAL  SOVEREIGNTY. 

sonesus,  Assenisipia,  Metropotamia,  Illinoia,  Sara 
toga,  Washington,  Polypotamia,  and  Pelisipia. 

It  was  not  the  nomenclature  that  stood  in  the 
way  of  Jefferson's  scheme,  but  the  wholesale  way 
in  which  he  tried  to  deal  with  the  slavery  question. 
He  wished  to  hem  in  the  probable  extension  of 
slavery  by  an  impassable  barrier,  and  accordingly 
he  not  only  provided  that  it  should  be  extinguished 
in  the  northwestern  territory  after  the 

He  wishes  to  * 

prohibit  siav-    year  1800,  but  at  the  same  time  his  anti- 

ery  in  the  na-    * 

tionai  do-         slavery  ardour  led  him  to  try  to  extend 

main.  * 

the  national  dominion  southward.  He 
did  his  best  to  persuade  the  legislature  of  Virginia 
to  crown  its  work  by  giving  up  Kentucky  to  the 
United  States,  and  he  urged  that  North  Carolina 
and  Georgia  should  also  cede  their  western  terri 
tories.  As  for  South  Carolina,  she  was  shut  in  be 
tween  the  two  neighbouring  states  in  such  wise  that 
her  western  claims  were  vague  and  barren.  Jeffer 
son  would  thus  have  drawn  a  north-and-south  line 
from  Lake  Erie  down  to  the  Spanish  border  of  the 
Floridas,  and  west  of  this  line  he  would  have  had 
all  negro  slavery  end  with  the  eighteenth  century. 
The  policy  of  restricting  slavery,  so  as  to  let  it  die 
a  natural  death  within  a  narrowly  confined  area,  — 
the  policy  to  sustain  which  Mr.  Lincoln  was  elected 
president  in  1860,  —  was  thus  first  definitely  out 
lined  by  Jefferson  in  1784.  It  was  the  policy  of 
forbidding  slavery  in  the  national  territory.  Had 
this  policy  succeeded  then,  it  would  have  been  an 
ounce  of  prevention  worth  many  a  pound  of  cure. 
But  it  failed  because  of  its  largeness,  because  it 
had  too  many  elements  to  deal  with.  For  the 


GERMS  OF  NATIONAL  SOVEREIGNTY.    199 

moment,  the  proposal  to  exclude  slavery  from  the 
northwestern  territory  was  defeated,  because  of 
the  two  thirds  vote  required  in  Congress  for  any 
important  measure.  It  got  only  seven  states  in 
its  favour,  where  it  needed  nine.  This  defeat,  how 
ever,  was  retrieved  three  years  later,  when  the  fa 
mous  Ordinance  of  1787  prohibited  slavery  for 
ever  from  the  national  territory  north  of  the  Ohio 
River.  But  Jefferson's  scheme  had  not  only  to 
deal  with  the  national  domain  as  it  was,  but  also  to 
extend  that  domain  southward  to  Florida ;  and  in 
this  it  failed,  Virginia  could  not  be  persuaded  to 
give  up  Kentucky  until  too  late.  When  Kentucky 
came  into  the  Union,  after  the  adoption  of  the 
Federal  Constitution,  she  came  as  a  sovereign  state, 
with  all  her  domestic  institutions  in  her  own  hands. 
With  the  western  districts  of  North  Carolina  the 
case  was  somewhat  different,  and  the  story  of  this 
region  throws  a  curious  light  upon  the  affairs  of 
that  disorderly  time. 

In  surrendering  her  western  territory,  North 
Carolina  showed  praiseworthy  generosity.  But  the 
frontier  settlers  were  too  numerous  to  be  handed 
about  from  one  dominion  to  another,  without  say 
ing  something  about  it  themselves ;  and  their  ac 
tion  complicated  the  matter,  until  it  was  too  late 
for  Jefferson's  scheme  to  operate  upon  them.  In 
June,  1784,  North  Carolina  ceded  the  region  since 
known  as  Tennessee,  and  allowed  Congress  two 
years  in  which  to  accept  the  grant.  Meanwhile, 
her  own  authority  was  to  remain  supreme  there. 
But  the  settlers  grumbled  and  protested.  Some 
of  them  were  sturdy  pioneers  of  the  finest  type,  but 


200    GERMS  OF  NATIONAL  SOVEREIGNTY. 

along  with  these  there  was  a  lawless  population  of 
"  white  trash,"  ancestors  of  the  peculiar  race  of 
men  we  find  to-day  in  rural  districts  of  Missouri 
and  Arkansas.  They  were  the  refuse  of  North 
Carolina,  gradually  pushed  westward  by  the  ad 
vance  of  an  orderly  civilization.  Crime  was  rife 
in  the  settlements,  and,  in  the  absence  of  courts,  a 
rough-and-ready  justice  was  administered  by  vigi 
lance  committees.  The  Cherokees,  moreover,  were 
troublesome  neighbours,  and  people  lived  in  dread 
of  their  tomahawks.  Petitions  had  again  and 
again  gone  up  to  the  legislature,  urging  the  estab 
lishment  of  courts  and  a  militia,  but  had  passed  un 
heeded,  and  now  it  seemed  that  the  state  had  with 
drawn  her  protection  entirely.  The  settlers  did 
not  wish  to  have  their  country  made  a  national  do 
main.  If  their  own  state  could  not  protect  them, 
it  was  quite  clear  to  them  that  Congress  could  not. 
What  was  Congress,  any  way,  but  a  roomful  of 
men  whom  nobody  heeded  ?  So  these  backwoods 
men  held  a  convention  in  a  log-cabin  at  Jonesbor- 
ough,  and  seceded  from  North  Carolina.  They 
declared  that  the  three  counties  between  the  Bald 
Mountains  and  the  Holston  River  constituted  an 
independent  state,  to  which  they  gave  the  name  of 
John  sevier,  Franklin ;  and  they  went  on  to  frame 
rfFrankfhJ6  a  constitution  and  elect  a  legislature 
with  two  chambers.  For  governor  they 
chose  John  Sevier,  one  of  the  heroes  of  King's 
Mountain,  a  man  of  Huguenot  ancestry,  and  such 
dauntless  nature  that  he  was  generally  known  as 
the  "  lion  of  the  border."  Having  done  all  this, 
the  seceders,  in  spite  of  their  small  respect  for 


GERMS   OF  NATIONAL  SOVEREIGNTY.    201 

Congress,  sent  a  delegate  to  that  body,  requesting 
that  the  new  state  of  Franklin  might  be  admitted 
into  the  Union.  Before  this  business  had  been 
completed,  North  Carolina  repealed  her  act  of 
cession,  and  warned  the  backwoodsmen  to  return 
to  their  allegiance.  This  at  once  split  the  new 
state  into  two  factions :  one  party  wished  to  keep 
on  as  they  had  now  started,  the  other  wished  for 
reunion  with  North  Carolina.  In  1786  the  one 
party  in  each  county  elected  members  to  represent 
them  in  the  North  Carolina  legislature,  while  the 
other  party  elected  members  of  the  legislature  of 
Franklin.  Everywhere  two  sets  of  officers  claimed 
authority,  civil  dudgeon  grew  very  high,  and  pis 
tols  were  freely  used.  The  agitation  extended  into 
the  neighbouring  counties  of  Virginia,  where  some 
discontented  people  wished  to  secede  and  join  the 
state  of  Franklin.  For  the  next  two  years  there 
was  something  very  like  civil  war,  until  the  North 
Carolina  party  grew  so  strong  that  Sevier  fled,  and 
the  state  of  Franklin  ceased  to  exist.  Sevier  was 
arrested  on  a  warrant  for  high  treason,  but  he  ef 
fected  an  escape,  and  after  men's  passions  had 
cooled  down  his  great  services  and  strong  charac 
ter  brought  him  again  to  the  front.  He  sat  in  the 
senate  of  North  Carolina,  and  in  1796,  when  Ten 
nessee  became  a  state  in  the  Union,  Sevier  was  her 
first  governor. 

These  troubles  show  how  impracticable  was  the 
attempt  to  create  a  national  domain  in  any  part  of 
the  country  which  contained  a  considerable  popu 
lation.  The  instinct  of  self-government  was  too 
strong  to  allow  it.  Any  such  population  would 


202    GERMS   OF  NATIONAL  SOVEREIGNTY. 

have  refused  to  submit  to  ordinances  of  Congress. 
To  obey  the  parent  state  or  to  set  up  for  one's  self, 
—  these  were  the  only  alternatives  which  ordinary 
men  at  that  time  could  understand.  Experience 
had  not  yet  ripened  their  minds  for  comprehend 
ing  a  temporary  condition  of  semi-independence, 
such  as  exists  to-day  under  our  territorial  govern 
ments.  The  behaviour  of  these  Tennessee  back 
woodsmen  was  just  what  might  have  been  expected. 
The  land  on  which  they  were  living  was  not  com 
mon  land :  it  had  been  appropriated  ;  it  belonged 
to  them,  and  it  was  for  them  to  make  laws  for  it. 
Such  is  the  lesson  of  the  short-lived  state  of  Frank 
lin.  It  was  because  she  perceived  that  similar 
feelings  were  at  work  in  Kentucky  that  Virginia 
did  not  venture  to  loosen  her  grasp  upon  that  state 
until  it  was  fully  organized  and  ready  for  admis 
sion  into  the  Union.  It  was  in  no  such  partly  set 
tled  country  that  Congress  could  do  such  a  thing 
as  carve  out  boundaries  and  prohibit  slavery  by  an 
act  of  national  sovereignty.  There  remained  the 
magnificent  territory  north  of  the  Ohio,  —  an  em 
pire  in  itself,  as  large  as  the  German  Empire,  with 
the  Netherlands  thrown  in,  —  in  which  the  collec 
tive  wisdom  of  the  American  people,  as  represented 
in  Congress,  might  autocratically  shape  the  future  ; 
for  it  was  still  a  wilderness,  watched  by  frontier 
garrisons,  and  save  for  the  Indians  and  the  trap 
pers  and  a  few  sleepy  old  French  towns  on  the 
eastern  bank  of  the  Mississippi,  there  were  no 
signs  of  human  life  in  all  its  vast  solitude.  Here, 
where  there  was  nobody  to  grumble  or  secede,  Con< 
gress,  in  1787,  proceeded  to  carry  out  the  work 
which  Jefferson  had  outlined  three  years  before. 


GERMS   OF  NATIONAL  SOVEREIGNTY.    203 

It  is  interesting  to  trace  the  immediate  origin  of 
the  famous  Ordinance  of  1787.  At  the  close  of 
the  war  General  Kuftis  Putnam,  from  the  moun 
tain  village  of  Rutland  in  Massachusetts,  sent  to 
Congress  an  outline  of  a  plan  for  colonizing  the  re 
gion  between  Lake  Erie  and  the  Ohio  origin  of  the 
with  veterans  of  the  army,  who  were 
well  fitted  to  protect  the  border  against  Indian  at 
tacks.  The  land  was  to  be  laid  out  in  townships 
six  miles  square,  "  with  large  reservations  for  the 
ministry  and  schools  ; "  and  by  selling  it  to  the 
soldiers  at  a  merely  nominal  price,  the  penniless 
Congress  might  obtain  an  income,  and  at  the  same 
time  recognize  their  services  in  the  only  substan 
tial  way  that  seemed  practicable.  Washington 
strongly  favoured  the  scheme,  but,  in  order  to  carry 
it  out,  it  was  necessary  to  wait  until  the  cession  of 
the  territory  by  the  various  claimant  states  should 
be  completed.  After  this  had  been  done,  a  series 
of  treaties  were  made  with  the  Six  Nations,  as  over 
lords,  and  their  vassal  tribes,  the  Wyandots,  Chip- 
pewas,  Ottawas,  Delawares,  and  Shawnees,  whereby 
all  Indian  claims  to  the  lands  in  question  were  for 
ever  renounced.  The  matter  was  then  formally 
taken  up  by  Holden  Parsons  of  Connecticut,  and 
Rufus  Putnam,  Manasseh  Cutler,  Winthrop  Sar 
gent,  and  others,  of  Massachusetts,  and  a  joint- 
stock  company  was  formed  for  the  purchase  of 
lands  on  the  Ohio  River.  A  large  number  of  set 
tlers  —  old  soldiers  of  excellent  character,  whom 
the  war  had  impoverished  —  were  ready  to  go  and 
take  possession  at  once  ;  and  in  its  petition  the 
Ohio  company  asked  for  nothing  better  than  thai 


204    GERMS   OF  NATIONAL  SOVEREIGNTY. 

its  settlers  should  be  "  under  the  immediate  gov 
ernment  of  Congress  in  such  mode  and  for  such 
time  as  Congress  shall  judge  proper."  Such  a 
proposal,  affording  a  means  at  once  of  replenishing 
the  treasury  and  satisfying  the  soldiers,  could  not 
but  be  accepted ;  and  thus  were  laid  the  founda 
tions  of  a  state  destined  within  a  century  to  equal 
in  population  and  far  surpass  in  wealth  the  whole 
Union  as  it  was  at  that  time.  It  became  necessary 
at  once  to  lay  down  certain  general  principles  of 
government  applicable  to  the  northwestern  terri 
tory  ;  and  the  result  was  the  Ordinance  of  1787, 
which  was  chiefly  the  work  of  Edward  Carrington 
and  Richard  Henry  Lee  of  Virginia,  and  Nathan 
Dane  of  Massachusetts,  in  committee,  following 
the  outlines  of  a  draft  which  is  supposed  tu  have 
been  made  by  Manasseh  Cutler.  Jefferson  was  no 
longer  on  the  ground,  having  gone  on  his  mission 
to  Paris,  but  some  of  the  principles  of  his  proposed 
Ordhwace  of  1784  were  adopted. 

It  was  provided  that  the  northwestern  territory 
should  ultimately  be  carved  into  states,  not  exceed 
ing  five  in  number,  and  any  one  of  these  might  be 
admitted  into  the  Union  as  soon  as  its  population 
should  reach  60,000.  In  the  mean  time,  the  whole 

The  Ordinance    territorv  was  *°  ^6  gOVCmed    by  officers 

of  1787.  appointed  by  Congress,  and  required  to 

take  an  oath  of  allegiance  to  the  United  States. 
Under  this  government  there  was  to  be  unqualified 
freedom  of  religious  worship,  and  no  religious  tests 
should  be  required  of  any  public  official.  Intestate 
property  should  descend  in  equal  shares  to  children 
of  both  sexes.  Public  schools  were  to  be  estab- 


GERMS  OF  NATIONAL  SOVEREIGNTY.    205 

lished.  Suffrage  was  not  yet  made  universal,  as  a 
freehold  in  fifty  acres  was  required.  No  law  was 
ever  to  be  made  which  should  impair  the  obligation 
of  contracts,  and  iu  was  thoroughly  agreed  that  this 
provision  especially  covered  and  prohibited  the 
issue  of  paper  money.  The  future  states  to  be 
formed  from  this  territory  must  make  their  laws 
conform  to  these  fundamental  principles,  and  under 
no  circumstances  could  any  one  of  them  ever  be 
separated  from  the  Union.  In  such  wise,  the 
theory  of  peaceful  secession  was  condemned  in 
advance,  so  far  as  it  was  possible  for  the  federal 
government  to  do  so.  Jefferson's  principle,  that 
slavery  should  not  be  permitted  in  the  national 
domain,  was  also  adopted  so  far  as  the  northwest 
was  concerned ;  and  it  is  interesting  to  observe  the 
names  of  the  states  which  were  present  in  Congress 
when  this  clause  was  added  to  the  ordinance.  They 
were  Georgia,  the  two  Carolinas,  Virginia,  Dela 
ware,  New  Jersey,  New  York,  and  Massachusetts ; 
and  the  vote  was  unanimous.  No  one  was  more 
active  in  bringing  about  this  result  than  William 
Grayson  of  Virginia,  who  was  earnestly  supported 
by  Lee.  The  action  of  Virginia  and  North  Caro» 
lina  at  that  time  need  not  surprise  us.  But  the 
movements  in  favour  of  emancipation  in  these  two 
states,  and  the  emancipation  actually  effected  or 
going  on  at  the  north,  had  already  made  Georgia 
and  South  Carolina  extremely  sensitive  about  slav 
ery  ;  and  their  action  on  this  occasion  can  be  ex 
plained  only  by  supposing  that  they  were  willing 
to  yield  a  point  in  this  remote  territory,  in  order 
by  and  by  to  be  able  to  insist  upon  an  equivalent 


206    GERMS  OF  NATIONAL  SOVEREIGNTY. 

in  the  case  of  the  territory  lying  west  of  Georgia. 
Nor  would  they  have  yielded  at  all  had  not  a  f  ugi- 
tive  slave  law  been  enacted,  providing  that  slaves 
escaping  beyond  the  Ohio  should  be  arrested  and 
returned  to  their  owners.  These  arrangements 
having  been  made,  General  St.  Clair  was  appointed 
governor  of  the  territory ;  surveys  were  made ;  land 
was  put  up  for  sale  at  sixty  cents  per  acre,  pay 
able  in  certificates  of  the  public  debt ;  and  settlers 
rapidly  came  in.  The  westward  exodus  from  New 
England  and  Pennsylvania  now  began,  and  only 
fourteen  years  elapsed  before  Ohio,  the  first  of  the 
five  states,  was  admitted  into  the  Union. 

"I  doubt,"  says  Daniel  Webster,  "whether  one 
single  law  of  any  law-giver,  ancient  or  modern,  has 
produced  effects  of  more  distinct,  marked,  and  last 
ing  character  than  the  Ordinance  of  1787."  Noth 
ing  could  have  been  more  emphatically  an  exercise 
of  national  sovereignty ;  yet,  as  Madison  said,  while 
warmly  commending  the  act,  Congress  did  it  "  with 
out  the  least  colour  of  constitutional  authority." 
The  ordinance  was  never  submitted  to  the  states 
for  ratification.  The  articles  of  confederation  had 
never  contemplated  an  occasion  for  such  a  pecul 
iar  assertion  of  sovereignty.  "  A  great  and  inde 
pendent  fund  of  revenue,"  said  Madison,  "is  pass 
ing  into  the  hands  of  a  single  body  of  men,  who 
can  raise  troops  to  an  indefinite  number,  and  ap 
propriate  money  to  their  support  for  an  indefinite 
period  of  time.  .  .  .  Yet  no  blame  has  been  whis 
pered,  no  alarm  has  been  sounded,"  even  by  men 
most  zealous  for  state  rights  and  most  suspicious 
of  Congress.  Within  a  few  months  this  argument 


GERMS  OF  NATIONAL  SOVEREIGNTY.    207 

was  to  be  cited  with  telling  effect  against  those 
who  hesitated  to  accept  the  Federal  Constitution 
because  of  the  great  powers  which  it  conferred  upon 
the  general  government.  Unless  you  give  a  gov 
ernment  specific  powers,  commensurate  with  its 
objects,  it  is  liable  on  occasions  of  public  necessity 
to  exercise  powers  which  have  not  been  granted. 
Avoid  the  dreadful  dilemma  between  dissolution 
and  usurpation,  urged  Madison,  by  clothing  the 
government  with  powers  that  are  ample  but  clearly 
defined.  In  a  certain  sense,  the  action  of  Congress 
in  1787  was  a  usurpation  of  authority  to  meet  an 
emergency  which  no  one  had  foreseen,  as  in  the 
cases  of  Jefferson's  purchase  of  Louisiana  and  Lin 
coln's  emancipation  of  the  slaves.  Each  of  these 
instances  marked,  in  one  way  or  another, 
a  brilliant  epoch  in  American  history,  iand°up<m  ° 

,  .  ,  ,  ,  , .      .  which  the  or- 

and  in  each  case  the  public  interest  was  diuance  was 
so  unmistakable  that  the  people  con 
sented  and  applauded.  The  theory  upon  which 
the  Ordinance  of  1787  was  based  was  one  which 
nobody  could  fail  to  understand,  though  perhaps 
no  one  would  then  have  known  just  how  to  put  it 
into  words.  It  was  simply  the  thirteen  states, 
through  their  delegates  in  Congress,  dealing  with 
the  unoccupied  national  domain  as  if  it  were  the 
common  land  or  folkland  of  a  stupendous  town 
ship. 

The  vast  importance  of  the  lands  between  the 
Alleghanies  and  the  Mississippi  was  becoming 
more  apparent  every  year,  as  the  westward  move 
ment  of  population  went  on.  But  at  this  time 
their  value  was  much  more  clearly  seen  by  the 


208    GERMS   OF  NATIONAL  SOVEREIGNTY. 

southern  than  by  the  northern  states.  In  the 
north  the  westward  emigration  was  only  just  be* 
ginning  to  pass  the  Alleghanies ;  in  the  south,  as 
we  have  seen,  it  had  gone  beyond  them  several 
years  ago.  The  southern  states,  accordingly,  took 
a  much  sounder  view  than  the  northern  states  of 
the  importance  to  the  Union  of  the  free  navigation 
of  the  Mississippi  River.  The  difference  was  for 
cibly  illustrated  in  the  dispute  with  Spain,  which 
came  to  a  crisis  in  the  summer  of  1786.  It  will 
be  remembered  that  by  the  treaties  which  closed 

s  ain  heaiin  *^e  -^evo^uti°nary  War  the  provinces  of 
of  the  secret  East  and  West  Florida  were  ceded  bv 

article  in  the  .  J 

treaty  of  1783,   England  to  Spain.     West  Florida  was 

loses  her  tern-  '  .  r 

ensto^shut6^  ***  reglon  tylng  between  the  Appalach- 
the  Mississippi  icola  and  the  Mississippi  rivers,  includ 
ing  the  southernmost  portions  of  the 
present  states  of  Alabama  and  Mississippi.  By 
the  treaty  between  Great  Britain  and  the  United 
States,  the  northern  boundary  of  this  province  was 
described  by  the  thirty-first  parallel  of  latitude; 
but  Spain  denied  the  right  of  these  powers  to  place 
the  boundary  so  low.  Her  troops  still  held  Natchez, 
and  she  maintained  that  the  boundary  must  be 
placed  a  hundred  miles  farther  north,  starting 
from  the  Mississippi  at  the  mouth  of  the  Yazoo 
River,  near  the  present  site  of  Vicksburg.  Now 
the  treaty  between  Great  Britain  and  the  United 
States  contained  a  secret  article,  wherein  it  was 
>rovided  that  if  England  could  contrive  to  keep 
A^est  Florida,  instead  of  surrendering  it  to  Spain, 
then  the  boundary  should  start  at  the  Yazoo.  This 
ohowwd  that  both  England  and  the  United  States 


GERMS   OF  NATIONAL  SOVEREIGNTY.    209 

were  willing  to  yield  the  one  to  the  other  a  strip  of 
territory  which  both  agreed  in  withholding  from 
Spain.  Presently  the  Spanish  court  got  hold  of 
the  secret  article,  and  there  was  great  indignation. 
Here  was  England  giving  to  the  Americans  a  piecr 
of  land  which  she  knew,  and  the  Americans  knew 
was  recently  a  part  of  West  Florida,  and  therefore 
belonged  to  Spain !  Castilian  grandees  went  to 
bed  and  dreamed  of  invincible  armadas.  Congress 
was  promptly  informed  that,  until  this  affair  should 
be  set  right,  the  Americans  need  not  expect  the 
Spanish  government  to  make  any  treaty  of  com 
merce  with  them ;  and  furthermore,  let  no  Amer 
ican  sloop  or  barge  dare  to  show  itself  on  the 
Mississippi  below  the  Yazoo,  under  penalty  of 
confiscation.  When  these  threats  were  heard  in 
America,  there  was  great  excitement  everywhere, 
but  it  assumed  opposite  phases  in  the  north  and 
in  the  south.  The  merchants  of  New  York  and 
Boston  cared  little  more  about  the  Mississippi 
River  than  about  Timbuctoo,  but  they  were  ex 
tremely  anxious  to  see  a  commercial  treaty  con 
cluded  with  Spain.  On  the  other  hand,  the  back 
woodsmen  of  Kentucky  and  the  state  of  Franklin 
cared  nothing  for  the  trade  on  the  ocean,  but  they 
would  not  sit  still  while  their  corn  and  their  pork 
were  confiscated  on  the  way  to  New  Orleans.  The 
people  of  Virginia  sympathized  with  the  backwoods 
men,  but  her  great  statesmen  realized  the  impor 
tance  of  both  interests  and  the  danger  of  a  conflict 
between  them. 

The  Spanish   envoy,  Gardoqui,  arrived   in   the 
summer  of  1784,  and   had  many  interviews  with 


210    GERMS  OF  NATIONAL  SOVEREIGNTY. 

Jay,  who  was  then  secretary  for  foreign  affairs. 
Gardoqui  set  forth  that  his  royal  master  was  gra 
ciously  pleased  to  deal  leniently  with  the  Ameri- 
Gardoqui  and  cans,  and  would  confer  one  favour  upon 
them,  but  could  not  confer  two.  He 
was  ready  to  enter  into  a  treaty  of  commerce  with 
us,  but  not  until  we  should  have  renounced  all 
claim  to  the  navigation  of  the  Mississippi  River 
below  the  Yazoo.  Here  the  Spaniard  was  inexora 
ble,  A  year  of  weary  argument  passed  by,  and  he 
had  not  budged  an  inch.  At  last,  in  despair,  Jay 
advised  Congress,  for  the  sake  of  the  commercial 
treaty,  to  consent  to  the  closing  of  the  Mississippi, 
but  only  for  twenty-five  years.  As  the  rumour  of 
this  went  abroad  among  the  settlements  south  of  the 
Ohio,  there  was  an  outburst  of  wrath,  to  which  an 
incident  that  now  occurred  gave  added  virulence.  A 
North  Carolinian  trader,  named  Amis,  sailed  down 
the  Mississippi  with  a  cargo  of  pots  and  kettles 
and  barrels  of  flour.  At  Natchez  his  boat  and  his 
goods  were  seized  by  the  Spanish  officers,  and  he 
was  left  to  make  his  way  home  afoot  through  sev 
eral  hundred  miles  of  wilderness.  The  story  of  his 
wrongs  flew  from  one  log-cabin  to  another,  until  it 
reached  the  distant  northwestern  territory.  In  the 
neighbourhood  of  Vincennes  there  were  Spanish 
traders,  and  one  of  them  kept  a  shop  in  the  town. 
The  shop  was  sacked  by  a  band  of  American  sol 
diers,  and  an  attempt  was  made  to  incite  the  In 
dians  to  attack  the  Spaniards.  Indignation  meet 
ings  were  held  in  Kentucky.  The  people  threat' 
ened  to  send  a  force  of  militia  down  the  river  and 
capture  Natchez  and  New  Orleans ;  and  a  more 


GERMS   OF  NATIONAL  SOVEREIGNTY.    211 

dangerous  threat  was  made.  Should  the  north 
eastern  states  desert  them  and  adopt  Jay's  sugges 
tion,  they  vowed  they  would  secede,  and  throw 
themselves  upon  Great  Britain  for  protection.  On 
the  other  hand,  there  was  great  agitation 

{*  Threats  of 

in  the  seaboard  towns  of  Massachusetts,   secession  in 

m  •Till         Kentucky  and 

Ihev   were   disgusted   with   the  back-  inNewEng- 

J  £  l   •  U        £  U        ..    land'  1786' 

woodsmen  for  making  such  a  fuss  about 
nothing,  and  with  the  people  of  the  southern  states 
for  aiding  and  abetting  them ;  and  during  this  tur 
bulent  summer  of  1786,  many  persons  were  heard 
to  declare  that,  in  case  Jay's  suggestion  should  not 
be  adopted,  it  would  be  high  time  for  the  New 
England  states  to  secede  from  the  Union,  and  form 
a  confederation  by  themselves.  The  situation  was 
dangerous  in  the  extreme.  Had  the  question  been 
forced  to  an  issue,  the  southern  states  would  never 
have  seen  their  western  territories  go  and  offer 
themselves  to  Great  Britain.  Sooner  than  that, 
they  would  have  broken  away  from  the  northern 
states.  But  New  Jersey  and  Pennsylvania  noM 
came  over  to  the  southern  side,  and  Rhode  Island, 
moving  in  her  eccentric  orbit,  presently  joined 
them  ;  and  thus  the  treaty  was  postponed  for  the 
present,  and  the  danger  averted. 

This  lamentable  dispute  was  watched  by  "Wash 
ington  with  feelings  of  gravest  concern.  From  an 
early  age  he  had  indulged  in  prophetic  dreams  of 
the  grandeur  of  the  coming  civilization  in  America, 
and  had  looked  to  the  country  beyond  the  moun 
tains  as  the  field  in  which  the  next  generation  was 
to  find  room  for  expansion.  Few  had  been  more 
efficient  than  he  in  aiding  the  great  scheme  of  Pitt 


212    GERMS  OF  NATIONAL  SOVEREIGNTY. 

for  overthrowing  the  French  power  in  America,  and 
he  understood  better  than  most  men  of  his  time  how 
much  that  scheme  implied.  In  his  early  journeys 
in  the  wilderness  he  had  given  especial  attention  to 
the  possibilities  of  water  connection  between  the 
east  and  west,  and  he  had  bought  for  himself  and 
surveyed  many  extensive  tracts  of  land  beyond  the 
mountains.  The  subject  was  a  favourite  one  with 
him,  and  he  looked  at  it  from  both  a  commercial 
and  a  political  point  of  view.  What  we  most 
needed,  he  said  in  1770,  were  easy  transit  lines  be- 
tween  east  and  west,  as  "  the  channel 
eof  of  conveyance  of  the  extensive  and  val- 
uable  trade  of  arising  empire."  Just 
before  resigning  his  commission  in  1783 
Washington  had  explored  the  route  through  the 
Mohawk  Valley,  afterward  taken  first  by  the  Erie 
Canal,  and  then  by  the  New  York  Central  Rail 
road,  and  had  prophesied  its  commercial  impor 
tance  in  the  present  century.  Soon  after  reaching 
his  home  at  Mount  Vernon,  he  turned  his  attention 
to  the  improvement  of  intercourse  with  the  west 
through  the  valley  of  the  Potomac.  The  east  and 
west,  he  said,  must  be  cemented  together  by  in 
terests  in  common;  otherwise  they  will  break 
asunder.  Without  commercial  intercourse  they 
will  cease  to  understand  each  other,  and  will  thus 
be  ripe  for  disagreement.  It  is  easy  for  mental 
habits,  as  well  as  merchandise,  to  glide  down 
stream,  and  the  connections  of  the  settlers  beyond 
the  mountains  all  centre  in  New  Orleans,  which  is 
in  the  hands  of  a  foreign  and  hostile  power.  No 
one  can  tell  what  complications  may  arise  from  this, 


GERMS   OF  NATIONAL  SOVEREIGNTY.    213 

argued  Washington  ;  "  let  us  bind  these  people  to 
us  by  a  chain  that  can  never  be  broken  ;  "  and  with 
characteristic  energy  he  set  to  work  at  once  to  es 
tablish  that  line  of  communication  that  has  since 
grown  into  the  Chesapeake  and  Ohio  Canal,  and 
into  the  Baltimore  and  Ohio  Railroad.  During 
the  three  years  preceding  the  meeting  of  the  Fed 
eral  Convention  he  was  largely  occupied  with  this 
work.  In  1785  he  became  president  of  a  company 
for  extending  the  navigation  of  the  Potomac  and 
James  rivers,  and  the  legislature  of  Virginia  passed 
an  act  vesting  him  with  one  hundred  and  fifty  shares 
in  the  stock  of  the  company,  in  order  to  testify 
their  "  sense  of  his  unexampled  merits."  But 
Washington  refused  the  testimonial,  and  His  far- 
declined  to  take  any  pay  for  his  services,  ?nd ^eiSev'S 
because  he  wished  to  arouse  the  people  * 
to  the  political  importance  of  the  undertaking, 
and  felt  that  his  words  would  have  more  weight 
if  he  were  known  to  have  no  selfish  interest  in  it. 
His  sole  purpose,  as  he  repeatedly  said,  was  to 
strengthen  the  spirit  of  union  by  cementing  the 
eastern  and  western  regions  together.  At  this 
time  he  could  ill  afford  to  give  his  services  without 
pay,  for  his  long  absence  in  war-time  had  sadly 
impaired  his  estate.  But  such  was  Washington. 

In  order  to  carry  out  the  enterprise  of  extend-  - 
ing  the  navigation  of  the  Potomac,  it  became  nec 
essary  for  the  two  states  Virginia  and  Maryland  con. 
Maryland  to  act  in  concert ;  and  early 
in  1785  a  joint  commission  of  the  two 
states  met  for  consultation  at  Washing-  mac' im 
ton's  house  at  Mount  Vernon.     A  compact  insur* 


214    GERMS  OF  NATIONAL  SOVEREIGNTY. 

ing  harmonious  cooperation  was  prepared  by  the 
commissioners  ;  and  then,  as  Washington's  scheme 
involved  the  connection  of  the  head  waters  of  the 
Potomac  with  those  of  the  Ohio,  it  was  found  nec 
essary  to  invite  Pennsylvania  to  become  a  party  to 
the  compact.  Then  Washington  took  the  occasion 
to  suggest  that  Maryland  and  Virginia,  while  they 
were  about  it,  should  agree  upon  a  uniform  system 
of  duties  and  other  commercial  regulations,  and 
upon  a  uniform  currency  ;  and  these  suggestions 
were  sent,  together  with  the  compact,  to  the  legis 
latures  of  the  two  states.  Great  things  were  des 
tined  to  come  from  these  modest  beginnings. 
Just  as  in  the  Yorktown  campaign,  there  had  come 
into  existence  a  multifarious  assemblage  of  events, 
apparently  unconnected  with  one  another,  and  all 
that  was  needed  was  the  impulse  given  by  Wash 
ington's  far-sighted  genius  to  set  them  all  at  work, 
surging,  swelling,  and  hurrying  straight  forward 
to  a  decisive  result. 

Late  in  1785,  when  the  Virginia  legislature  had 
wrangled  itself  into  imbecility  over  the  question  of 
clothing  Congress  with  power  over  trade,  Madison  • 
Madison's  mo-  *"*  uPon  an  expedient.  He  prepared  a 
tion ;  a  step  in  motion  to  the  effect  that  commissioners 
from  all  the  states  should  hold  a  meet* 
ing,  and  discuss  the  best  method  of  securing  a  uni 
form  treatment  of  commercial  questions  ;  but  as 
he  was  most  conspicuous  among  the  advocates  of  a 
more  perfect  union,  he  was  careful  not  to  present 
the  motion  himself.  Keeping  in  the  background, 
be  persuaded  another  member  —  John  Tyler, 
father  of  the  president  of  that  name,  a  fierce 


GERMS  OF  NATIONAL  SOVEREIGNTY.    215 

zealot  for  state  rights  —  to  make  the  motion.  The 
plan,  however,  was  "  so  little  acceptable  that  it 
was  riot  then  persisted  in,"  and  the  motion  was  laid 
on  the  table.  But  Madison  knew  what  was  com 
ing  from  Maryland,  and  bided  his  time.  After 
some  weeks  it  was  announced  that  Maryland  had 
adopted  the  compact  made  at  Mount  Vernon  con 
cerning  jurisdiction  over  the  Potomac.  Virginia 
instantly  replied  by  adopting  it  also.  Then  it  was 
suggested,  in  the  report  from  Maryland,  that  Del 
aware,  as  well  as  Pennsylvania,  ought  to  be  con 
sulted,  since  the  scheme  should  rightly  include  a 
canal  between  the  Delaware  River  and  the  Chesa 
peake  Bay.  And  why  not  also  consult  with  these 
states  about  a  uniform  system  of  duties  ?  If  two 
states  can  agree  upon  these  matters,  why  not  four  ? 
And  still  further,  said  the  Maryland  message,  — 
dropping  the  weightiest  part  of  the  proposal  into  a 
subordinate  clause,  just  as  women  are  said  to  put 
the  quintessence  of  their  letters  into  the  postscript, 
—  might  it  not  be  well  enough,  if  we  are  going  to 
have  such  a  conference,  to  invite  commissioners 
from  all  the  thirteen  states  to  attend  it  ?  An  in 
formal  discussion  can  hurt  nobody.  The  confer 
ence  of  itself  can  settle  nothing  ;  and  if  four  states 
can  take  part  in  it,  why  not  thirteen  ?  Here  was 
the  golden  opportunity.  The  Madison-Tyler  mo 
tion  was  taken  up  from  the  table  and  carried. 
Commissioners  from  all  the  states  were  invited  to 
meet  on  the  first  Monday  of  September,  1786,  at 
Annapolis,  —  a  safe  place,  far  removed  from  the 
influence  of  that  dread  tyrant,  the  Congress,  and 
from  wicked  centres  of  trade,  such  as  New  York 


216    GERMS   OF  NATIONAL  SOVEREIGNTY. 

and  Boston.  It  was  the  governor  of  Virginia  who 
sent  the  invitations.  It  may  not  amount  to  much, 
wrote  Madison  to  Monroe,  but  u  the  expedient  is 
better  than  nothing ;  and,  as  the  recommendation 
of  additional  powers  to  Congress  is  within  the  pur 
view  of  the  commission,  it  may  possibly  lead  to  bet 
ter  consequences  than  at  first  occur." 

The  seed  dropped  by  Washington  had  fallen  on 
fruitful  soil.  At  first  it  was  to  be  just  a  little 
meeting  of  two  or  three  states  to  talk  about  the 
Potomac  River  and  some  projected  canals,  and  al 
ready  it  had  come  to  be  a  meeting  of  all  the  states 
to  discuss  some  uniform  system  of  legislation  on 
the  subject  of  trade.  This  looked  like  progress, 
vet  when  the  convention  was  srathered 

Convention  at*7  i-ni/.ri 

Annapolis,  at  Annapolis,  on  the  llth  of  September, 
the  outlook  was  most  discouraging. 
Commissioners  were  there  from  Virginia,  Dela 
ware,  Pennsylvania,  New  Jersey,  and  New  York. 
Massachusetts  and  New  Hampshire,  Rhode  Island 
and  North  Carolina,  had  duly  appointed  commis 
sioners,  but  they  were  not  there.  It  is  curious  to 
observe  that  Maryland,  which  had  been  so  earnest 
in  the  matter,  had  nevertheless  now  neglected  to 
appoint  commissioners ;  and  no  action  had  been 
taken  by  Georgia,  South  Carolina,  or  Connecticut. 
With  only  five  states  represented,  the  commission 
ers  did  not  think  it  worth  while  to  go  on  with  their 
work.  But  before  adjourning  they  adopted  an  ad 
dress,  written  by  Alexander  Hamilton,  and  sent  it 
to  all  the  states.  All  the  commissioners  present 
had  been  empowered  to  consider  how  far  a  uniform 
commercial  system  might  be  essential  to  the  per- 


GERMS   OF  NATIONAL  SOVEREIGNTY.    217 

manent  harmony  of  the  states.  But  New  Jersey 
had  taken  a  step  in  advance,  and  instructed  her 
delegates  "  to  consider  how  far  a  uniform  system 
in  their  commercial  regulations  and  other  impor 
tant  matters  might  be  necessary  to  the  common 
interest  and  permanent  harmony  of  the  several 
states."  And  other  important  matters,  —  thus 
again  was  the  weightiest  part  of  the  business  rele 
gated  to  a  subordinate  clause.  So  gingerly  was 
the  great  question  —  so  dreaded,  yet  so  inevitable 
—  approached  !  This  reference  to  "  other  mat 
ters  "  was  pronounced  by  the  commissioners  to  be 
a  vast  improvement  on  the  original  plan;  and 
Hamilton's  address  now  urged  that  com-  Hamilton»8  ad. 
missioners  be  appointed  by  all  the 
states,  to  meet  in  convention  at  Phila-  vance> 
delphia  on  the  second  Monday  of  the  following 
May,  "  to  devise  such  further  provisions  as  shall 
appear  to  them  necessary  to  render  the  constitution 
of  the  federal  government  adequate  to  the  exigen 
cies  of  the  Union,  and  to  report  to  Congress  such 
an  act  as,  when  agreed  to  by  them,  and  confirmed 
by  the  legislatures  of  every  state,  would  effectually 
provide  for  the  same."  The  report  of  the  commis 
sioners  was  brought  before  Congress  in  October,  in 
the  hope  that  Congress  would  earnestly  recommend 
to  the  several  states  the  course  of  action  therein 
suggested.  But  Nathan  Dane  and  Rufus  King  of 
Massachusetts,  intent  upon  technicalities,  suc 
ceeded  in  preventing  this.  According  to  King,  a 
convention  was  an  irregular  body,  which  had  no 
right  to  propose  changes  in  the  organic  law  of  the 
land,  and  the  state  legislatures  could  not  properly 


218    GERMS   OF  NATIONAL  SOVEREIGNTY. 

confirm  the  acts  of  such  a  body,  or  take  notice  of 
them.  Congress  was  the  only  source  from  which 
such  proposals  could  properly  emanate.  These  ar* 
guments  were  pleasing  to  the  self-love  of  Congress, 
and  it  refused  to  sanction  the  plan  of  the  Annapo 
lis  commissioners. 

In  an  ordinary  season  this  would  perhaps  have 
ended  the  matter,  but  the  winter  of  1786—87  was 
not  an  ordinary  season.  All  the  troubles  above  de 
scribed  seemed  to  culminate  just  at  this  moment. 
The  paper-money  craze  in  so  many  of  the  states, 
the  shameful  deeds  of  Rhode  Island,  the  riots  in 
Vermont  and  New  Hampshire,  the  Shays  rebel 
lion  in  Massachusetts,  the  dispute  with  Spain,  and 
the  consequent  imminent  danger  of  separation  be 
tween  north  and  south  had  all  come  together ;  and 
the  feeling  of  thoughtful  men  and  women  through 
out  the  country  was  one  of  real  consternation.  The 
last  ounce  was  now  to  be  put  upon  the  camel's  back 
in  the  failure  of  the  impost  amendment.  In  1783, 
when  the  cessions  of  western  lands  were  creating  a 
New  York  de-  na^ona^  domain,  a  promising  plan  had 
festsamen£~  been  Devised  for  relieving  the  country 
ment.  of  its  load  of  debt,  and  furnishing  Con 

gress  with  money  for  its  current  expenses.  All 
the  money  coming  from  sales  of  the  western  folk- 
land  was  to  be  applied  to  reducing  and  wiping  out 
the  principal  of  the  public  debt.  Then  the  interest 
of  this  debt  must  be  provided  for ;  and  to  that  end 
Congress  had  recommended  an  impost,  or  system 
of  custom-house  duties,  upon  liquors,  sugars,  teas, 
coffees,  cocoa,  molasses,  and  pepper.  This  impost 
was  to  be  kept  up  for  twenty-five  years  only,  and 


GERMS  OF  NATIONAL  SOVEREIGNTY.    219 

the  collectors  were  to  be  appointed  by  the  several 
states,  each  for  its  own  ports.  Then  for  the  cur 
rent  expenses  of  the  government,  supplementary 
funds  were  needed ;  and  these  were  to  be  assessed 
upon  the  several  states,  each  of  which  might  raise 
its  quota  as  it  saw  fit.  Such  was  the  original  plan ; 
but  it  soon  turned  out  that  the  only  available  source 
of  revenue  was  the  national  domain,  which  had 
thus  been  nothing  less  than  the  principal  thread 
which  had  held  the  Union  together.  As  for  the 
impost,  it  had  never  been  possible  to  get  a  suffi 
cient  number  of  states  to  agree  upon  it,  and  of  the 
quotas  for  current  expenses,  as  we  have  seen,  very 
little  had  found  its  way  to  the  federal  treasury. 
Under  these  difficulties,  it  had  been  proposed  that 
an  amendment  to  the  articles  of  confederation 
should  endow  Congress  with  the  power  of  levying 
customs-duties  and  appointing  the  collectors ;  and 
by  the  summer  of  1786,  after  endless  wrangling, 
twelve  states  had  consented  to  the  amendment. 
But,  in  order  that  an  amendment  should  be 
adopted,  unanimous  consent  was  necessary.  The 
one  delinquent  state,  which  thus  blocked  the  wheels 
of  the  confederacy,  was  New  York.  She  had  her 
little  system  of  duties  all  nicely  arranged  for  what 
seemed  to  be  her  own  interests,  and  she  would  not 
surrender  this  system  to  Congress.  Upon  the 
neighbouring  states  her  tariff  system  bore  hard, 
and  especially  upon  New  Jersey.  In  1786  this  lit 
tle  state  flatly  refused  to  pay  her  quota  until  New 
York  should  stop  discriminating  against  her  trade. 
Nothing  which  occurred  in  that  troubled  yeal 
caused  more  alarm  than  this,  for  it  could  not  be 


220    GERMS  OF  NATIONAL  SOVEREIGNTY. 

denied  that  such  a  declaration  seemed  little  less 
than  an  act  of  secession  on  the  part  of  New  Jersey. 
The  arguments  of  a  congressional  committee  at  last 
prevailed  upon  the  state  to  rescind  her  declaration. 
At  the  same  time  there  came  the  final  struggle  in 
New  York  over  the  impost  amendment,  against 
which  Governor  Clinton  had  firmly  set  his  face. 
There  was  a  fierce  fight,  in  which  Hamilton's  most 
strenuous  efforts  succeeded  in  carrying  the  amend 
ment  in  part,  but  not  until  it  had  been  clogged 
with  a  condition  that  made  it  useless.  Congress, 
it  was  declared,  might  have  the  revenue,  but  New 
York  must  appoint  the  collectors ;  she  was  not 
going  to  have  federal  officials  rummaging  about 
her  docks.  The  legislature  well  knew  that  to  grant 
the  amendment  in  such  wise  was  not  to  grant  it  at 
all,  but  simply  to  reopen  the  whole  question.  Such 
was  the  result.  Congress  expostulated  in  vain.  On 
the  15th  of  February,  1787,  the  matter  was  recon 
sidered  in  the  New  York  legislature,  and  the  im 
post  amendment  was  defeated. 

Thus,  only  three  months  before  the  Federal 
Convention  was  to  meet,  if  indeed  it  was  ever  to 
meet,  Congress  was  decisively  informed  that  it 
would  not  be  allowed  to  take  any  effectual  meas 
ures  for  raising  a  revenue.  There  now  seemed  noth 
ing  left  for  Congress  to  do  but  adopt  the  recom 
mendation  of  the  Annapolis  commissioners,  and 
give  its  sanction  to  the  proposed  convention.  Mad 
ison,  however,  had  not  waited  for  this,  but  had 
prevailed  upon  the  Virginia  legislature  to  go  on 
and  appoint  its  delegates  to  the  convention.  The 
events  of  the  year  had  worked  a  change  in  the 


GERMS  OF  NATIONAL  SOVEREIGNTY.    221 

popular  sentiment  in  Virginia ;  people  were  more 
afraid  of  anarchy,  and  not  quite  so  much  afraid 
of  centralization  ;  and  now,  under  Madison's  lead, 
Virginia  played  her  trump  card  and  chose  George 
Washington  as  one  of  her  delegates.  gudden 
As  soon  as  this  was  known,  there  was  JJJXJSma. 
an  outburst  of  joy  throughout  the  land.  ment> 
All  at  once  the  people  began  everywhere  to  feel 
an  interest  in  the  proposed  convention,  and  pres 
ently  Massachusetts  changed  her  attitude.  Up  to 
this  time  Massachusetts  had  been  as  obstinate  in 
her  assertion  of  local  independence,  and  as  unwill 
ing  to  strengthen  the  hands  of  Congress,  as  any  of 
the  thirteen  states,  except  New  York  and  Rhode 
Island.  But  the  Shays  rebellion  had  served  as  a 
useful  object-lesson.  Part  of  the  distress  in  Massa 
chusetts  could  be  traced  to  the  inability  of  Con 
gress  to  pay  debts  which  it  owed  to  her  citizens. 
It  was  felt  that  the  time  had  come  when  the  ques 
tion  of  a  national  revenue  must  be  seriously  con 
sidered.  Every  week  saw  fresh  converts  to  the 
party  which  called  for  a  stronger  government. 
Then  came  the  news  that  Virginia  had  chosen  dele 
gates,  and  that  Washington  was  one  of  them ;  then 
that  New  Jersey  had  followed  the  example ;  then 
that  Pennsylvania,  North  Carolina,  Delaware,  had 
chosen  delegates.  It  was  time  for  Massachusetts 
to  act,  and  Kufus  King  now  brought  the  matter  up 
in  Congress.  His  scruples  as  to  the  legality  of  the 
proceeding  had  not  changed,  and  accordingly  he 
moved  that  Congress  should  of  itself  propose  a 
convention  at  Philadelphia,  identical  with  the  one 
which  the  Annapolis  commissioners  had  already 


222    GERMS   OF  NATIONAL  SOVEREIGNTY. 

recommended.  The  motion  was  carried,  and  in 
this  way  Congress  formally  approved  and  adopted 
what  was  going  on.  Massachusetts  immediately 
chose  delegates,  and  was  followed  by  New  York. 
In  April,  Georgia  and  South  Carolina  followed 
suit.  Connecticut  and  Maryland  came  on  in  May, 
and  New  Hampshire,  somewhat  tardily,  in  June. 
Of  the  thirteen  states,  Rhode  Island  alone  refused 
to  take  any  part  in  the  proceedings. 

The  convention  held  its  meetings  in  that  plain 
brick  building  in  Philadelphia  already  immortal 
ized  as  the  place  from  which  the  Declaration  of  In 
dependence  was  published  to  the  world, 
Convention       The  work  which  these  men  were  under- 

meets  at  Phila-         ,  .  ,  .  1,1  ,  i 

deiphia,  May     taking  was  to  determine  whether  that 

14-25,  1787.          1%      i          i  •  111  f          ,1         11 

Declaration  had  been  for  the  blessing 
or  the  injury  of  America  and  of  mankind.  That 
they  had  succeeded  in  assembling  here  at  all  was 
somewhat  remarkable,  when  we  think  of  the  curi 
ous  medley  of  incidents  that  led  to  it.  At  no  time 
in  this  distressed  period  would  a  frank  and  abrupt 
proposal  for  a  convention  to  remodel  the  govern 
ment  have  found  favour.  Such  proposals,  indeed, 
had  been  made,  beginning  with  that  of  Pelatiah 
Webster  in  1781,  and  they  had  all  failed  to  break 
through  the  crust  of  a  truly  English  conservatism 
and  dread  of  centralized  power.  Now,  through 
what  some  might  have  called  a  strange  chapter  of 
accidents,  before  the  element  of  causal  sequence  in 
it  all  had  become  so  manifest  as  it  is  to  us  to-day, 
this  remarkable  group  of  men  had  been  brought 
together  in  a  single  room,  while  even  yet  but  few 
of  them  realized  how  thoroughly  and  exhaustively 


GERMS   OF  NATIONAL  SOVEREIGNTY.    223 

reconstructive  their  work  was  to  be.  To  most  of 
them  it  was  not  clear  whether  they  were  going 
merely  to  patch  up  the  articles  of  confederation, 
or  to  strike  out  into  a  new  and  very  different  path. 
There  were  a  few  who  entertained  far-reaching 
purposes;  the  rest  were  intelligent  critics  rather 
than  constructive  thinkers ;  the  result  was  surpris 
ing  to  all.  It  is  worth  our  while  to  pause  for  a 
moment,  and  observe  the  character  and  composition 
of  one  of  the  most  memorable  assemblies  the  world 
has  ever  seen.  Mr.  Gladstone  says  that  just  "  as 
the  British  Constitution  is  the  most  subtle  organ 
ism  which  has  proceeded  from  progressive  history, 
so  the  American  Constitution  is  the  most  wonder 
ful  work  ever  struck  off  at  a  given  time  by  the 
brain  and  purpose  of  man."  l  Let  us  now  see  who 
the  men  were  who  did  this  wonderful  work,  —  this 
Iliad,  or  Parthenon,  or  Fifth  Symphony,  of  states 
manship.  We  shall  not  find  that  they  were  all 
great  geniuses.  Such  is  never  the  case  in  such  an 
assembly.  There  are  not  enough  great  geniuses  to 
go  around  ;  and  if  there  were,  it  is  questionable  if 
the  result  would  be  satisfactory.  In  such  discus 
sions  the  points  which  impress  the  more  ordinary 
and  less  far-sighted  members  are  sure  to  have  great 
value  ;  especially  when  we  bear  in  mind  that  the 
object  of  such  an  assembly  is  not  merely  to  elabo 
rate  a  plan,  but  to  get  the  great  mass  of  people, 
including  the  brick-layers  and  hod-carriers,  to  un- 

1  It  would  be  in  the  highest  degree  erroneous,  however,  to 
suppose  that  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States  is  not,  aa 
much  as  any  other,  an  instance  of  evolution  from  precedents. 
See,  in  this  connection,  the  very  able  article  by  Prof.  Alexander 
Johnston,  New  Princeton  Review,  Sept.,  1887,  pp.  175-190. 


224    GERMS  OF  NATIONAL  SOVEREIGNTY. 

derstand  it  well  enough  to  vote  for  it.  An  ideally 
perfect  assembly  of  law-makers  will  therefore  con 
tain  two  or  three  men  of  original  constructive 
genius,  two  or  three  leading  spirits  eminent  for 
shrewdness  and  tact,  a  dozen  or  more  excellent 
critics  representing  various  conflicting  interests, 
and  a  rank  and  file  of  thoroughly  respectable,  com 
monplace  men,  unfitted  for  shining  in  the  work  of 
the  meeting,  but  admirably  competent  to  proclaim 
its  results  and  get  their  friends  and  neighbours  to 
adopt  them.  And  in  such  an  assembly,  even  if  it  be 
such  as  we  call  ideally  perfect,  we  must  allow  some 
thing  for  the  presence  of  a  few  hot-headed  and 
irreconcilable  members,  —  men  of  inflexible  mind, 
who  cannot  adapt  themselves  to  circumstances,  and 
will  refuse  to  play  when  they  see  the  game  going 
against  them. 

All  these  points  are  well  illustrated  in  the  as 
semblage  of  men  that  framed  our  Federal  Consti 
tution.  In  its  composition,  this  group  of  men  left 
nothing  to  be  desired.  In  its  strength  and  in  its 
weakness,  it  was  an  ideally  perfect  assembly. 

There  were  fifty-five  men,  all  of  them 
wereassem-  respectable  for  family  and  for  personal 

qualities,  —  men  who  had  been  well  ed 
ucated,  and  had  done  something  whereby  to  earn 
recognition  in  these  troubled  times.  Twenty- nine 
were  university  men,  graduates  of  Harvard,  Yale, 
Columbia,  Princeton,  William  and  Mary,  Oxford, 
Glasgow,  and  Edinburgh.  Twenty-six  were  not 
university  men,  and  among  these  were  Washington 
and  Franklin.  Of  the  illustrious  citizens  who,  for 
their  public  services,  would  naturally  have  been 


GERMS   OF  NATIONAL  SOVEREIGNTY.    225 

here,  John  Adams  and  Thomas  Jefferson  were  in 
Europe ;  Samuel  Adams,  Patrick  Henry,  and  Rich 
ard  Henry  Lee  disapproved  of  tho  convention,  and 
remained  at  home  ;  and  the  greatest  man  of  Rhode 
Island,  Nathanael  Greene,  who  —  one  likes  to  think 
—  might  have  succeeded  in  bringing  his  state  into 
the  convention,  had  lately  died  of  a  sun-stroke,  at 
the  early  age  of  forty-four. 

Of  the  two  most  famous  men  present  little  need 
be  said.  The  names  of  Washington  and  Franklin 
stood  for  supreme  intelligence  and  consummate 
tact.  Franklin  had  returned  to  this  country  two 
years  before,  and  was  now  president  of  Pennsyl 
vania.  He  was  eighty-one  years  of  age,  the  oldest 
man  in  the  convention,  as  Jonathan  Dayton  of  New 
Jersey,  aged  twenty-six,  was  the  youngest.  The 
two  most  profound  and  original  thinkers  in  the 
company  were  but  little  older  than  Dayton.  Alex 
ander  Hamilton  was  thirty,  James  Madison  thirty- 
six.  Among  political  writers,  these  two  men  must 
be  ranked  in  the  same  order  with  Aristotle,  Mon 
tesquieu,  and  Locke ;  and  the  "  Federalist,"  their 
joint  production,  is  the  greatest  treatise  on  govern 
ment  that  has  ever  been  written.  John  Jay,  who 
contributed  a  few  pages  to  this  immortal  volume, 
had  not  been  sent  to  the  convention,  because  New 
York  did  not  wish  to  have  it  succeed.  Along  with 
Hamilton,  New  York  sent  two  commonplace  men, 
Robert  Yates  and  John  Lansing,  who  were  ex 
treme  and  obstinate  Antifederalists  ;  and  the  ac 
tion  of  Hamilton,  who  was  thus  prevented  from 
carrying  the  vote  of  his  own  state  for  any  measure 
which  he  might  propose,  was  in  this  way  sadly  em* 


226    GERMS   OF  NATIONAL  SOVEREIGNTY. 

barrassed.  For  another  reason,  Hamilton  failed 
to  exert  as  much  influence  in  the  convention  as  one 
would  have  expected  from  his  profound  thought 
and  his  brilliant  eloquence.  Scarcely  any  of  these 
men  entertained  what  we  should  now  call  extreme 
democratic  views.  Scarcely  any,  perhaps,  had 
that  intense  faith  in  the  ultimate  good  sense  of  the 
people  which  was  the  most  powerful  characteristic 
of  Jefferson.  But  Hamilton  went  to  the  other  ex 
treme,  and  expressed  his  distrust  of  popular  gov 
ernment  too  plainly.  His  views  were  too  aristo 
cratic  and  his  preference  for  centralization  was  too 
pronounced  to  carry  conviction  to  his  hearers. 
The  leading  part  in  the  convention  fell,  therefore, 
to  James  Madison,  a  young  man  somewhat  less 
brilliant  than  Hamilton,  but  superior  to  him  in  so- 
jamesMadi-  briety  and  balance  of  powers.  Madison 
80n-  used  to  be  called  the  "  Father  of  the 

Constitution,"  and  it  is  true  that  the  government 
under  which  we  live  is  more  his  work  than  that 
of  any  other  one  man.  From  early  youth  his  life 
had  been  devoted  to  the  study  of  history  and  the 
practice  of  statesmanship.  He  was  a  graduate  of 
Princeton  College,  an  earnest  student,  familiar 
with  all  the  best  literature  of  political  science  from 
Aristotle  down  to  his  own  time,  and  he  had  given 
especial  attention  to  the  history  of  federal  govern 
ment  in  ancient  Greece,  and  in  Switzerland  and 
Holland.  At  the  age  of  twenty-five  he  had  taken 
part  in  the  Virginia  convention  which  instructed 
the  delegates  from  that  state  in  Congress  to  bring 
forward  the  Declaration  of  Independence.  Dur 
ing  the  last  part  of  the  war  he  was  an  active  and 


GERMS  OF  NATIONAL  SOVEREIGNTY.   227 

influential  member  of  Congress,  where  no  one 
equalled  or  approached  him  for  knowledge  of  Eng 
lish  history  and  constitutional  law.  In  1784  he 
had  returned  to  the  Virginia  legislature,  and  been 
foremost  in  securing  the  passage  of  the  great  act 
which  gave  complete  religious  freedom  to  the  peo 
ple  of  that  state.  No  man  understood  better  than 
he  the  causes  of  the  alarming  weakness  of  the  fed 
eral  government,  and  of  the  commercial  disturb 
ances  and  popular  discontent  of  the  time ;  nor 
had  any  one  worked  more  zealously  or  more 
adroitly  in  bringing  about  the  meeting  of  this  con 
vention.  As  he  stood  here  now,  a  leader  in  the 
debate,  there  was  nothing  grand  or  imposing  in  his 
appearance.  He  was  small  of  stature  and  slight 
in  frame,  like  Hamilton,  but  he  had  none  of  Ham 
ilton's  personal  magnetism.  His  manner  was  shy 
and  prim,  and  blushes  came  often  to  his  cheeks. 
At  the  same  time,  he  had  that  rare  dignity  of  un 
conscious  simplicity  which  characterizes  the  earnest 
and  disinterested  scholar.  He  was  exceedingly 
sweet-tempered,  generous,  and  kind,  but  very  hard 
to  move  from  a  path  which,  after  long  reflection, 
he  had  decided  to  be  the  right  one.  He  looked  at 
politics  judicially,  and  was  so  little  of  a  party  man 
that  on  several  occasions  he  was  accused  (quite 
wrongfully,  as  I  hope  hereafter  to  prove)  of  gross 
inconsistency.  The  position  of  leadership,  which 
he  won  so  early  and  kept  so  long,  he  held  by  sheer 
force  of  giant  intelligence,  sleepless  industry,  and 
an  integrity  which  no  man  ever  doubted.  But  he 
was  above  all  things  a  man  of  peace.  When  in 
after  years,  as  president  of  the  United  States,  he 


228    GERMS   OF  NATIONAL  SOVEREIGNTY. 

was  called  upon  to  manage  a  great  war,  he  was  out 
of  place,  and  his  reputation  for  supreme  ability 
was  temporarily  lowered.  Here  in  the  Federal 
Convention  we  are  introduced  to  him  at  the  noblest 
and  most  useful  moment  of  his  life. 

Of  the  fifty-five  men  here  assembled,  Washington, 
Franklin,  Hamilton,  and  Madison  were  of  the  first 
order  of  ability.  Many  others  in  the  room  were 
gentlemen  of  more  than  ordinary  talent  and  culture, 
other  leading  There  was  John  Dickinson,  who  had 
moved  from  Pennsylvania  into  Delaware, 
and  now  came  to  defend  the  equal  rights  of  the 
smaller  states.  There  was  James  Wilson  of  Penn 
sylvania,  born  and  educated  in  Scotland,  one  of  the 
most  learned  jurists  this  country  has  ever  seen. 
Beside  him  sat  the  financier,  Robert  Morris,  and  his 
namesake  Gouverneur  Morris  of  Morrisania,  near 
the  city  of  New  York,  the  originator  of  our  decimal 
currency,  and  one  of  the  far-sighted  projectors  of 
the  Erie  Canal.  Then  there  was  John  Rutledge 
of  South  Carolina,  who  ever  since  the  Stamp  Act 
Congress  had  been  the  mainstay  of  his  state ;  and 
with  him  were  the  two  able  and  gallant  Pinckneys. 
Caleb  Strong,  afterward  ten  times  governor  of 
Massachusetts,  was  a  typical  Puritan,  hard-headed 
and  supremely  sensible ;  his  colleague,  Rufus 
King,  already  distinguished  for  his  opposition  to 
negro  slavery,  was  a  man  of  brilliant  attainments. 
And  there  were  George  Wythe,  the  chancellor  of 
Virginia,  and  Daniel  Carroll  of  Maryland,  who  had 
played  a  prominent  part  in  the  events  which  led  to 
the.  creation  of  a  national  domain.  Oliver  Ells 
worth  of  Connecticut,  afterward  chief  justice  of 


GERMS   OF  NATIONAL  SOVEREIGNTY.    229 

the  United  States,  was  one  of  the  ablest  lawyers 
of  his  time ;  with  him  were  Roger  Sherman  and 
William  Johnson,  the  latter  a  Fellow  of  the  Royal 
Society,  and  afterward  president  of  Columbia  Col 
lege.  The  New  Jersey  delegation,  consisting  of 
William  Livingston,  David  Brearley,  William  Pat- 
erson,  and  Jonathan  Dayton,  was  a  very  strong 
one ;  and  as  to  New  Hampshire,  it  is  enough  to 
mention  the  name  of  John  Langdon.  Besides  all 
these  there  were  some  twenty  of  less  mark,  men 
who  said  little,  but  listened  and  voted.  And  then 
there  were  the  irreconcilables,  Yates  and  Lan 
sing,  the  two  Antif ederalists  from  New  York ;  and 
four  men  of  much  greater  ability,  who  took  an  im 
portant  part  in  the  proceedings,  but  could  not  be 
induced  to  accept  the  result.  These  four  were 
Luther  Martin  of  Maryland ;  George  Mason  and 
Edmund  Randolph  of  Virginia;  and  Elbridge 
Gervy  of  Massachusetts. 

When  these  men  had  assembled  in  Independence 
Hall,  they  chose  George  Washington  president  of 
the  convention.  The  doors  were  locked,  and  an 
injunction  of  strict  secrecy  was  put  upon  every  one. 
The  results  of  their  work  were  known  in  the  fol 
lowing  September,  when  the  draft  of  the  Federal 
Constitution  was  published.  But  just  what  was 
said  and  done  in  this  secret  conclave  was  not  re 
vealed  until  fifty  years  had  passed,  and  the  aged 
James  Madison,  the  last  survivor  of  those  who  sat 
there,  had  been  gathered  to  his  fathers.  He  kept 
a  journal  of  the  proceedings,  which  was  published 
after  his  death,  and  upon  the  interesting  story  told 
in  that  journal  we  have  now  to  enter. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

THE    FEDERAL   CONVENTION. 
/ 

THE  Federal  Convention  did  wisely  in  withhold 
ing  its  debates  from  the  knowledge  of  the  people. 
It  was  felt  that  discussion  would  be  more  untram 
melled,  and  that  its  result  ought  to  go  before  the 
country  as  the  collective  and  unanimous  voice  of 
the  convention.  There  was  likely  to  be  wrangling 
enough  among  themselves  ;  but  should  their  scheme 
be  unfolded,  bit  by  bit,  before  its  parts  could  be 
viewed  in  their  mutual  relations,  popular  excite 
ment  would  become  intense,  there  might  be  riots, 
and  an  end  would  be  put  to  that  attitude  of  mental 
repose  so  necessary  for  the  constructive  work  that 
was  to  be  done.  It  was  thought  best  that  the 
scheme  should  be  put  forth  as  a  completed  whole, 
and  that  for  several  years,  even,  until  the  new  sys 
tem  of  government  should  have  had  a  fair  trial, 
the  traces  of  the  individual  theories  and  preferences 
concerned  in  its  formation  should  not  be  revealed. 
For  it  was  generallv  assumed  that  a  svs- 

Difficult  prob-  J  J 

lew  before  the  tern  ot  government  new  in  some  impor- 

convention.  111  111 

tant  respects  would  be  proposed  by  the 
convention,  and  while  the  people  awaited  the  result 
the  wildest  speculations  and  rumours  were  current. 
A  few  hoped,  and  many  feared,  that  some  scheme 
of  monarchy  would  be  established.  Such  surmises 


THE  FEDERAL   CONVENTION.          231 

found  their  way  across  the  ocean,  and  hopes  were 
expressed  in  England  that,  should  a  king  be  chosen, 
it  might  be  a  younger  son  of  George  III.  It  was 
even  hinted,  with  alarm,  that,  through  gratitude  to 
our  recent  allies,  we  might  be  persuaded  to  offer 
the  crown  to  some  member  of  the  royal  family  of 
France.  No  such  thoughts  were  entertained,  how 
ever,  by  any  person  present  in  the  convention. 
Some  of  the  delegates  came  with  the  design  of 
simply  amending  the  articles  of  confederation  by 
taking  away  from  the  states  the  power  of  regulat 
ing  commerce,  and  intrusting  this  power  to  Con 
gress.  Others  felt  that  if  the  work  were  not  done 
thoroughly  now  another  chance  might  never  be  of 
fered  ;  and  these  men  thought  it  necessary  to  abol 
ish  the  confederation,  and  establish  a  federal  re 
public,  in  which  the  general  government  should  act 
directly  upon  the  people.  The  difficul^roblern_was 
how  to  frame  a  plan  of  this  sort  which  people  could 
be  made  to  unflef§tagd""ggd  ^adoptr~  ^ttrthe"  very 
outs^eFsome  of  the  delegates l>egan  to  exhibit  symp 
toms  of  that  peculiar  kind  of  moral  cowardice 
which  is  wont  to  afflict  free  governments,  and  of 
which  American  history  furnishes  so  many  instruc 
tive  examples.  It  was  suggested  that  palliatives 
and  half  measures  would  be  far  more  likely  to  find 
favour  with  the  people  than  any  thorough-going  re 
form,  when  Washington  suddenly  interposed  with 
a  brief  but  immortal  speech,  which  ought  to  be 
blazoned  in  letters  of  gold,  and  posted  on  the  wall 
)f  every  American  assembly  that  shall  meet  to 
nominate  a  candidate,  or  declare  a  policy,  or  pass 
a  law,  so  long  as  the  weakness  of  human  nature 


232  THE  FEDERAL   CONVENTION. 

shall  endure.    Kising  from  his  president's  chair,  his 
Washington's    tall  figure  drawn  up  to  its  full  height,  he 

m  appeal.  exciajme(j  jn  tones  unwontedly  solemn 
with  suppressed  emotion,  "  It  is  too  probable  that 
no  plan  we  propose  will  be  adopted.  Perhaps  an 
other  dreadful  conflict  is  to  be  sustained.  If,  to 
please  the  people,  we  offer  what  we  ourselves  disap 
prove,  how  can  we  afterward  defend  our  work? 
Let  us  raise  a  standard  to  which  the  wise  and  the 
honest  can  repair;  the  event  is  in  the  hand  of 
God." 

This  outburst  of  noble  eloquence  carried  con 
viction  to  every  one,  and  henceforth  we  do  not  hear 
that  any  attempt  was  avowedly  made  to  avoid  the 
issues  as  they  came  up.  It  was  a  most  wholesome 
tonic.  It  braced  up  the  convention  to  high  resolves, 
and  impressed  upon  all  the  delegates  that  they  were 
in  a  situation  where  faltering  or  trifling  was  both 
wicked  and  dangerous.  From  that  moment  the 
mood  in  which  they  worked  caught  something  from 
the  glorious  spirit  of  Washington.  There  was 
need  of  such  high  purpose,  for  two  plans  were  pres 
ently  laid  before  the  meeting,  which,  for  a  moment, 
brought  out  one  of  the  chief  elements  of  antago 
nism  existing  between  the  states,  and  which  at  first 
seemed  irreconcilable.  It  was  the  happy  compro 
mise  which  united  and  harmonized  these  two  plans 
that  smoothed  the  further  work  of  the  convention, 
and  made  it  possible  for  a  stable  and  powerful 
government  to  be  constructed. 

The  first  of  these  plans  was  known  as  the  Vir 
ginia  plan.  It  was  agreed  upon  in  a  committee  of 
the  delegates  of  that  state,  and  was  brought  for- 


THE  FEDERAL   CONVENTION.          233 

ward  by  Edmund  Randolph,  governor  of  Virginia, 
in  the  name  of  the  state,  but  its  chief  author  was 
Madison.  It  struck  instantly  at  the  root  of  the 
difficulties  under  which  the  country  had  been  stag 
gering  ever  since  the  Declaration  of  Independence. 
The  federal  government  had  possessed  no  means 
of  enforcing  obedience  to  its  laws.  Its  The  root  of  aii 
edicts  were  without  a  sanction ;  and  this  * 
was  because  they  operated  upon  states,  and  not 
upon  individuals.  When  an  individual  defies  the 
law,  you  can  lock  him  up  in  jail,  or  levy  an  execu 
tion  upon  his  property.  The  immense  force  of  the 
community  is  arrayed  against  him,  and  he  is  as 
helpless  as  a  straw  on  the  billows  of  the  ocean. 
He  cannot  raise  a  militia  to  protect  himself.  But 
when  the  law  is  defied  by  a  state,  it  is  quite  other 
wise.  You  cannot  put  a  state  into  jail,  nor  seize 
its  goods  ;  you  can  only  make  war  on  it,  and  if  you 
try  that  expedient  ^ou  find  that  the  state  is  not 
helpless.  Its  local  pride  and  prejudices  are  aroused 
against  you,  and  its  militia  will  turn  out  in  full 
force  to  uphold  the  infraction  of  law.  Against 
this  obstinate  and  exasperated  military  force  what 
superior  force  can  you  bring?  Under  some  rare 
combination  of  circumstances  you  might  get  the 
military  force  of  several  of  the  other  states ;  but 
ordinarily,  when  what  you  are  trying  to  do  is  simply 
to  enforce  every-day  laws,  and  when  you  simply 
represent  a  distrusted  general  government  in  con 
flict  with  a  local  government,  you  cannot  do  this. 
The  other  states  will  sympathize  with  the  delinquent 
state  ;  they  will  feel  that  the  very  same  condition 
of  things  which  leads  you  to  attack  that  state  to 


234  THE  FEDERAL   CONVENTION. 

day  will  lead  you  to  attack  some  other  state  to 
morrow.  Hence  you  cannot  get  any  military  help, 
and  you  are  powerless. 

Such  was  the  case  with  the  Continental  Congress. 
A  novel  and  distrusted  institution,  it  was  called 
upon  to  enforce  its  laws  upon  long-established  com 
munities,  full  of  sturdy  independence  and  obstinate 
local  prejudices.  It  was  able  to  act,  though  with 
clumsy  slowness,  as  long  as  there  was  an  enemy  in 
the  field  who  was  even  more  dreaded.  But  as  soon 
as  this  enemy  had  been  beaten  out  of  sight  it  could 
not  act  at  all.  This  had  been  because  it  did  not 
represent  the  American  people,  but  only  the  Amer 
ican  states.  The  vital  force  which  moved  it  was 
not  the  resistless  force  of  a  whole  people,  but  only 
a  shadowy  semblance  of  force,  derived  from  a  theo 
retical  consent  of  thirteen  corporate  bodies,  which 
in  their  corporate  capacity  could  never  be  compelled 
to  agree  about  anything  under  the  sun ;  and  unless 
compelled  they  would  not  agree.  Four  years  of 
disturbance  in  every  part  of  the  country,  in  the 
course  of  which  troops  had  been  called  out  in  sev 
eral  states,  and  civil  war  had  been  narrowly  averted 
at  least  half  a  dozen  times,  had  proved  this  beyond 
all  cavil.  With  almost  any  other  people  than  the 
Americans  civil  war  would  have  come  already. 
With  all  the  vast  future  interests  that  were  in 
volved  in  these  quarrels  looming  up  before  their 
keen,  sagacious  minds,  it  was  a  wonder  that  they 
had  been  kept  from  coming  to  blows.  Such  self- 
restraint  had  been  greatly  to  their  credit.  It  was 
the  blessed  fruit  of  more  than  a  century  of  govern 
ment  by  free  discussion,  while  yet  these  states  were 


THE  FEDERAL   CONVENTION.          235 

colonies,  peopled  by  the  very  cream  of  English  free 
men  who  had  fought  the  decisive  battle  of  civil  and 
religious  freedom  for  mankind  in  that  long  crisis 
when  the  Invincible  Armada  was  overwhelmed  and 
the  Long  Parliament  won  its  triumphs.  Such  self- 
restraint  had  this  people  shown  in  days  of  trial, 
under  a  vicious  government  adopted  in  a  time  of 
hurry  and  sore  distress.  But  late  events  had  gone 
far  to  show  that  it  could  not  endure. 

The  words  of  Randolph's  opening  speech  are 
worth  quoting  in  this  connection.  "  The  confed 
eration,"  he  said,  "  was  made  in  the  infancy  of  the 
science  of  constitutions,  when  the  inefficiency  of 
requisitions  was  unknown ;  when  no  commercial 
discord  had  arisen  among  states ;  when  no  rebel 
lion  like  that  in  Massachusetts  had  broken  out; 
when  foreign  debts  were  not  urgent;  when  the 
havoc  of  paper  money  had  not  been  foreseen ; 
when  treaties  had  not  been  violated ;  and  when 
nothing  better  could  have  been  conceded  by  states 
jealous  of  their  sovereignty.  But  it  offered  no 
security  against  foreign  invasion,  for  Congress 
could  neither  prevent  nor  conduct  a  war,  nor  pun 
ish  infractions  of  treaties  or  of  the  law  of  nations, 
nor  control  particular  states  from  provoking  war. 
The  federal  government  has  no  constitutional 
power  to  check  a  quarrel  between  separate  states  ; 
nor  to  suppress  a  rebellion  in  any  one  of  them  ; 
nor  to  establish  a  productive  impost ;  nor  to  coun 
teract  the  commercial  regulations  of  other  nations  : 
nor  to  defend  itself  against  the  encroachments  of 
the  states.  From  the  manner  in  which  it  has  been 
ratified  in  many  of  the  states,  it  cannot  be  claimed 


236          THE  FEDERAL   CONVENTION. 

to  be  paramount  to  the  state  constitutions ;  so  that 
there  is  a  prospect  of  anarchy  from  the  inherent 
laxity  of  the  government.  As  the  remedy,  the 
government  to  be  established  must  have  for  its 
basis  the  republican  principle." 

Having  thus  tersely  stated  the  whole  problem, 

Randolph  went  on  to  present  the  Virginia  plan. 

To  make  the  federal  government  operate  directly 

upon   individuals,   one    provision   was    absolutely 

necessary.     It  did  not  solve  the  whole 

The  Virginia  J  .  . 

plan;  a          problem,  but  it  was  an  indispensable  be- 

radical  cure.       r. 

ginning.  This  was  the  proposal  that 
there  should  be  a  national  legislature,  in  which  the 
American  people  instead  of  the  American  states 
should  be  represented.  For  the  purposes  of  fed 
eral  legislation,  there  must  be  an  assembly  elected 
directly  by  the  people,  and  with  its  members  appor 
tioned  according  to  population.  There  must  be 
such  an  assembly  as  our  present  House  of  Repre 
sentatives,  standing  in  the  same  immediate  relation 
to  the  people  of  the  whole  country  as  was  sustained 
by  the  assembly  of  each  separate  state  to  the  peo 
ple  of  that  state.  Without  such  direct  representa 
tion  of  the  whole  people  in  the  Federal  Congress, 
it  would  be  impossible  to  achieve  one  secure  step 
toward  the  radical  reform  of  the  weaknesses  and 
vices  of  the  confederation.  It  was  the  only  way  in 
which  the  vexed  question  of  one  nation  or  thirteen 
could  be  made  to  yield  a  satisfactory  answer.  At 
the  same  time  it  could  not  be  denied  that  such  a 
proposal  was  revolutionary  in  character.  It  paved 
the  way  for  a  national  consolidation  which  might 
go  further  than  any  one  could  foresee,  and  much 


THE  FEDERAL   CONVENTION.         237 

further  than  was  desirable.  The  moribund  Con 
gress  of  the  Confederation,  with  its  delegates  chosen 
by  the  state  assemblies,  and  casting  its  vote  simply 
by  states,  had  utterly  failed  to  serve  as  a  national 
legislature.  There  was  a  good  deal  of  truth  in 
what  John  Adams  once  said  of  it,  that  it  was  more 
a  diplomatic  than  a  legislative  body.  It  was,  in 
deed,  because  of  this  consciously  felt  diplomatic 
character  that  it  was  called  a  Congress,  and  not  a 
Parliament.  In  its  lack  of  coercive  power  it  re 
sembled  the  international  congresses  of  Europe 
rather  than  the  supreme  legislature  of  any  country. 
To  substitute  abruptly  for  such  a  body  a  truly 
national  legislature,  based  not  upon  states  but 
upon  population,  was  quietly  to  inaugurate  a  revo 
lution  of  no  less  magnitude  than  that  which  had 
lately  severed  us  from  Great  Britain.  So  bold  a 
step,  while  all-essential  in  order  to  complete  that 
revolution,  and  make  its  victorious  issue  fortunate 
instead  of  disastrous  to  the  American  people,  was 
sufficiently  revolutionary  to  awaken  the  fears  of 
many  members  of  the  Federal  Convention.  To 
the  familiar  state  governments  which  had  so  long 
possessed  their  love  and  allegiance,  it  was  super- 
adding  a  new  and  untried  government,  which  it 
was  feared  would  swallow  -up  the  states  and  every 
where  extinguish  local  independence.  Nor  can  it 
be  said  that  such  fears  were  unreasonable.  Our 
federal  government  has  indeed  shown  a  strong  ten 
dency  to  encroach  upon  the  province  of  the  state 
governments,  especially  since  our  late  Civil  War. 
Too  much  centralization  is  our  danger  to-day,  as 
the  weakness  of  the  federal  tie  was  our  danger  a 


238          THE  FEDERAL   CONVENTION. 

century  ago.  The  rule  of  the  Federalist  party  was 
needed  in  1789  as  the  rule  of  the  Republican  party 
was  needed  in  1861,  to  put  a  curb  upon  the  centrif 
ugal  tendencies.  But  after  Federalism  had  fairly 
done  its  great  work,  at  the  beginning  of  the  nine 
teenth  century,  it  was  well  that  the  administration 
of  our  national  affairs  should  pass  into  the  hands 
of  the  party  to  which  Thomas  Jefferson  and  Samuel 
Adams  belonged,  and  which  Madison,  in  his  calm 
statesmanlike  wisdom,  had  come  to  join.  And  now 
that,  in  our  own  day,  the  disruptive  forces  have 
been  even  more  thoroughly  and  effectually  over 
come,  it  is  time  for  the  principles  of  that  party  to 
be  reasserted  with  fresh  emphasis.  If  the  day 
should  ever  arrive  (which  God  forbid  !)  when  the 
people  of  the  different  parts  of  our  country  shall 
allow  their  local  affairs  to  be  administered  by  pre 
fects  sent  from  Washington,  and  when  the  self- 
government  of  the  states  shall  have  been  so  far 
lost  as  that  of  the  departments  of  France,  or  even 
so  far  as  that  of  the  counties  of  England,  —  on 
that  day  the  progressive  political  career  of  the 
American  people  will  have  come  to  an  end,  and 
the  hopes  that  have  been  built  upon  it  for  the  fu 
ture  happiness  and  prosperity  of  mankind  will  be 
wrecked  forever. 

I  do  not  think  that  the  historian  writing  at  the 
present  day  need  fear  any  such  direful  calamity, 
for  the  past  century  has  shown  most  instructively 
how,  in  such  a  society  as  ours,  the  sense  of  political 
dangers  slowly  makes  its  way  through  the  whole 
mass  of  the  people,  until  movements  at  length  are 
made  to  avert  them,  and  the  pendulum  swings  in 


THE  FEDERAL   CONVENTION.         239 

the  opposite  direction.  The  history  of  political 
parties  in  the  United  States  is  especially  rich  in 
lessons  of  this  sort.  Compared  with  the  statesmen 
of  the  Federal  Convention,  we  are  at  a  great  ad" 
vantage  in  studying  this  question  of  national  con 
solidation  ;  and  we  have  no  excuse  for  failing  to 
comprehend  the  attitude  of  the  men  who  dreaded 
the  creation  of  a  national  legislature  as  the  enter 
ing  wedge  which  would  by  and  by  rend  asunder 
the  structure  of  our  liberties.  The  great  mind  of 
Madison  was  one  of  the  first  to  entertain  distinctly 
the  noble  conception  of  two  kinds  of  government 
operating  at  one  and  the  same  time  upon  the  same 
individuals,  harmonious  with  each  other,  but  each 
supreme  in  its  own  sphere.  Such  is  the  funda 
mental  conception  of  our  partly  federal,  partly 
national,  government,  which  appears  throughout 
the  Virginia  plan  as  well  as  in  the  Constitution 
which  grew  out  of  it.  It  was  a  political  concep 
tion  of  a  higher  order  than  had  ever  before  been 
entertained ;  it  took  a  great  deal  of  discussion  to 
make  it  clear  to  the  minds  of  the  delegates  gen 
erally  ;  and  the  struggle  over  this  initial  measure 
of  a  national  legislature  was  so  bitter  as  to  come 
near  breaking  up  the  convention. 

In  its  original  shape  the  Virginia  plan  went 
much  further  toward  national  consolidation  than 
the  Constitution  as  adopted.  The  reaction  against 
the  evils  of  the  loose-jointed  confederation,  which 
Randolph  so  ably  summed  up,  was  extreme.  Ac 
cording  to  the  Virginia  plan,  the  national  legisla 
ture  was  to  be  composed  of  two  houses,  like  the 
legislatures  of  the  several  states.  The  members  of 


240         THE  FEDERAL   CONVENTION. 

the  lower  house  should  be  chosen  directly  by  the 
people ;  members  of  the  upper  house,  or  Senate, 
should  be  elected  by  the  lower  house  out  of  per 
sons  nominated  by  the  state  legislatures.  In  both 
the  lower  and  the  upper  branches  of  this  national 
legislature  the  votes  were  to  be  the  votes  of  indi 
viduals,  and  no  longer  the  votes  of  states,  as  in  the 
Continental  Congress.  Under  the  articles  of  con 
federation  each  state  had  an  equal  vote,  and  two 
thirds  were  required  for  every  important  measure. 
Under  the  proposed  Constitution  each  state  was  to 
have  a  number  of  representatives  proportionate 
either  to  its  wealth  or  to  the  number  of  its  free 
inhabitants,  and  a  bare  majority  of  votes  was  to 
suffice  to  pass  all  measures  in  the  ordinary  course 
of  business  ;  and  these  rules  were  to  apply  both  to 
the  lower  house  and  to  the  Senate.  To  adopt  such 
a  plan  would  overthrow  the  equality  of  the  states 
altogether.  It  would  give  Virginia,  the  greatest 
state,  sixteen  representatives,  where  Georgia,  the 
smallest  state,  had  but  one ;  and  besides,  as  the 
votes  were  no  longer  to  be  taken  by  states,  indi 
vidual  members  could  combine  in  any  way  they 
pleased,  quite  irrespective  of  state  lines.  It  was 
not  strange  that  to  many  delegates  in  the  conven 
tion  such  a  beginning  should  have  seemed  revolu 
tionary.  This  impression  was  deepened  when  it 
was  further  proposed  not  only  to  clothe  this  na 
tional  legislature  with  original  powers  of  legislation 
in  all  cases  to  which  the  several  states  are  incom 
petent,  but  also  to  allow  it  to  set  aside  at  discretioi 
such  state  laws  as  it  might  deem  unconstitutional. 
It  is  interesting  to  find  Madison,  whose  Federalism 


THE  FEDERAL   CONVENTION.          241 

afterward  came  to  be  so  moderate,  now  appearing 
as  the  earnest  defender  of  this  extreme  provision, 
so  incompatible  with  state  rights.  But  in  Madi 
son's  mind  at  this  moment,  in  the  actual  presence 
of  the  anarchy  of  the  confederation,  the  only  alter 
native  which  seemed  to  present  itself  was  that  of 
armed  coercion.  "  A  negative  on  state  laws,"  he 
said,  "  is  the  mildest  expedient  that  can  be  devised 
for  enforcing  a  national  decree.  Should  no  such 
precaution  be  engrafted,  the  only  remedy  would  be 
coercion.  The  negative  would  render  the  use  of 
force  unnecessary.  This  prerogative  of  the  general 
government  is  the  great  pervading  principle  that 
must  control  the  centrifugal  tendency  of  the  states, 
which,  without  it,  will  continually  fly  out  of  their 
proper  orbits,  and  destroy  the  order  and  harmony 
of  the  political  system."  But  these  views  were  not 
destined  to  find  favour  with  the  convention,  which 
finally  left  the  matter  to  be  much  more  satisfacto 
rily  adjusted  through  the  medium  of  the  federal  ju 
diciary. 

Such  were  the  fundamental  provisions  of  the 
Virginia  plan  with  regard  to  the  national  legisla 
ture.  To  carry  out  the  laws,  it  was  proposed  that 
there  should  be  a  national  executive,  to  be  chosen 
by  the  national  legislature  for  a  short  term,  and 
ineligible  a  second  time.  Whether  the  executive 
power  should  be  invested  in  a  single  person  or  in 
several  was  not  specified.  As  will  be  seen  here 
after,  this  was  regarded  as  an  extremely  delicate 
point,  with  which  it  was  thought  best  not  to  em 
barrass  the  Virginia  plan  at  the  outset.  Passing 
lightly  over  this,  it  was  urged  that,  in  order  to  com* 


242         THE  FEDERAL   CONVENTION. 

plete  the  action  of  the  government  upon  individu 
als,  there  must  be  a  national  judiciary  to  determine 
cases  arising  under  the  Constitution,  cases  in  ad 
miralty,  and  cases  in  which  different  states  or  their 
citizens  appear  as  parties.  The  judges  were  to  be 
chosen  by  the  national  legislature,  to  hold  office 
during  good  behaviour. 

Such,  in  its  main  outlines,  was  the  plan  which 
Randolph  laid   before  the  convention, 

First  reception     .  T7_.       ••-•••  • 

of  the  Virginia  m  the  name  ot  the  Virginia  delegation. 
An  audacious  scheme  !  exclaimed  some 
of  the  delegates  ;  it  was  enough  to  take  your  breath 
away.  If  they  were  going  to  begin  like  this,  they 
might  as  well  go  home,  for  all  discussion  would  be 
time  wasted.  They  were  not  sent  there  to  set  on 
foot  a  revolution,  but  to  amend  and  strengthen  the 
articles  of  confederation.  But  this  audacious  plan 
simply  abolished  the  Confederation  in  order  to  sub 
stitute  for  it  a  consolidated  national  government. 
Foremost  in  urging  this  objection  were  Yates  and 
Lansing  of  New  York,  with  Luther  Martin  of 
Maryland.  Dickinson  said  it  was  pushing  things 
altogether  too  far,  and  his  colleague,  George  Read, 
hinted  that  the  delegation  from  Delaware  might 
feel  obliged  to  withdraw  from  the  convention  if  the 
election  of  representatives  according  to  population 
should  be  adopted.  By  the  tact  of  Madison  and 
Gouverneur  Morris  this  question  was  postponed  for 
a  few  days.  After  some  animated  discussion,  the 
issues  became  so  narrowed  and  defined  that  they 
could  be  taken  up  one  by  one.  It  was  first  decided 
that  the  national  legislature  should  consist  of  two 
branches.  Then  came  a  warm  discussion  as  to 


THE  FEDERAL   CONVENTION.          243 

whether  the  members  of  the  lower  house  should  be 
electedjdjrfictly  by  the  people  Curiously  enough, 
in  a  country  where  the  principle  of  popular  elec 
tion  had  long  since  taken  such  deep  root,  where 
the  assemblies  of  the  several  states  had  been  chosen 
by  the  people  from  the  very  beginning,  there  , was 
some  doubt  as  to  whether  the  same  .principle  could 
safely  be  applied  to  the  national  House  of  Repre 
sentatives.  Gerry,  with  his  head  full  of  the  Shays 
rebellion  and  the  "  Know  Ye "  measures  of  the 
neighbouring  state,  thought  the  people  could  not 
be  trusted.  "  The  people  do  not  want  virtue," 
said  he,  "  but  are  the  dupes  of  pretended  patriots." 
Roger  Sherman  took  a  similar  view,  and  was  sup 
ported  by  Martin,  Rutledge,  and  both  the  Pinck- 
neys ;  but  the  sounder  opinion  prevailed.  On  this 
point  Hamilton  was  at  one  with  Mason,  Wilson, 
and  Dickinson.  The  proposed  assembly,  said  Ma 
son,  was  to  be,  so  to  speak,  our  House  of  Commons, 
and  ought  to  know  and  sympathize  with  every  part 
of  the  community.  It  ought  to  have  at  heart  the 
rights  and  interests  of  every  class  of  the  people, 
and  in  no  other  way  could  this  end  be  so  com 
pletely  attained  as  by  popular  election.  "  Yes," 
added  Wilson,  "  without  the  confidence  of  the  peo 
ple  no  government,  least  of  all  a  republican  gov« 
ernment,  can  long  subsist.  .  .  .  The  election  of  the 
first  branch  by  the  people  is  not  the  corner-stone 
only,  but  the  foundation  of  the  fabric."  "  It  is  es 
sential  to  the  democratic  rights  of  the  community," 
said  Hamilton,  "  that  the  first  branch  be  directly 
elected  by  the  people."  Madison  argued  power 
fully  on  the  same  side,  and  the  question  was  finally 
decided  in  favour  of  popular  election. 


244  THE  FEDERAL   CONVENTION. 

It  was  now  the  4th  of  June,  when  the  great 
question  came  up  which  nearly  wrecked  the  con 
vention  before  it  was  settled,  after  a  whole  month 
of  stormy  debate.  This  was  the  question  as  to 
how  the  states  should  be  represented  in  the  new 
Antagonism  Congress.  On  the  Virginia  plan,  the 
rtatTandarge  smaller  states  would  be  virtually 
email  states.  swamped.  Unless  they  could  have 
equal  votes,  without  regard  to  wealth  or  popula 
tion,  they  would  be  at  the  mercy  of  the  great 
states.  In  the  division  which  ensued,  the  four 
most  populous  states  —  Virginia,  Massachusetts, 
Pennsylvania,  and  North  Carolina  —  favoured  the 
Virginia  plan ;  and  they  succeeded  in  carrying 
South  Carolina  with  them.  Georgia,  too,  which, 
though  weak  at  that  moment,  possessed  considera 
ble  room  for  expansion,  voted  upon  the  same  side. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  states  of  Connecticut,  New 
Jersey,  Delaware,  and  Maryland  —  which  were  not 
only  small  in  area,  but  were  cut  off  from  further 
expansion  by  their  geographical  situation  —  were 
not  inclined  to  give  up  their  equal  vote  in  either 
branch  of  the  national  legislature.  At  this  stage 
of  the  proceedings  the  delegation  from  New  Hamp- 
jshire  had  not  yet  arrived  upon  the  scene.  On  sev 
eral  occasions  the  majority  of  the  Maryland  dele 
gation  went  with  the  larger  states,  but  Luther 
Martin,  always  opposed  to  the  Virginia  plan,  usu 
ally  succeeded  in  dividing  the  vote  of  the  delegation. 
Of  the  New  York  members,  Yates  and  Lansing, 
here  as  always,  thwarted  Hamilton  by  voting  with 
the  smaller  states.  Their  policy  throughout  was 
one  of  obstruction.  The  members  from  Connects 


THE  FEDERAL   CONVENTION.          245 

cut  were  disposed  to  be  conciliatory  ;  but  New  Jer 
sey  was  obstinate  and  implacable.  She  knew  what 
it  was  to  be  tyrannized  over  by  powerful  neighbours. 
The  wrongs  she  had  suffered  from  New  York  and 
Pennsylvania  rankled  in  the  minds  of  her  dele 
gates.  Accordingly,  in  the  name  of  the  smaller 
states,  William  Pater  son  laid  before  the  conven 
tion  the  so-called  "New  Jersey  plan" 
for  the  amendment  of  the  articles  of 
confederation.  This  scheme  admitted  tlve' 
a  federal  legislature,  consisting  of  a  single  house, 
an  executive  in  the  form  of  a  council  to  be  chosen 
by  Congress,  and  likewise  a  federal  judiciary,  with 
powers  less  extensive  than  those  contemplated  by 
the  Virginia  plan.  It  gave  to  Congress  the  power 
to  regulate  foreign  and  domestic  commerce,  to  levy 
duties  on  imports,  and  even  to  raise  internal  rev 
enue  by  means  of  a  Stamp  Act.  But  with  all  this 
apparent  liberality  on  the  surface,  the  New  Jersey 
plan  was  vicious  at  bottom.  It  did  not  really  give 
Congress  the  power  to  act  immediately  upon  indi 
viduals.  The  federal  legislature  which  it  proposed 
was  to  represent  states,  and  not  individuals,  and 
the  states  were  to  vote  equally,  without  regard  to 
wealth  or  population.  If  things  were  to  be  left 
in  this  shape,  there  was  no  security  that  the  pow 
ers  granted  to  Congress  could  ever  be  really  exer 
cised.  Nay,  it  was  almost  certain  that  they  could 
not  be  put  into  operation.  It  was  easy  enough  on 
paper  to  give  Congress  the  permission  to  levy  du 
ties  and  regulate  commerce,  but  such  a  permission 
would  amount  to  nothing  unless  Congress  were 
armed  with  the  power  of  enforcing  its  decrees  upon 


246         THE  FEDERAL   CONVENTION. 

individuals.  And  it  could  in  no  wise  acquire  such 
power  unless  as  the  creature  of  the  people,  and  not 
of  the  states.  The  New  Jersey  plan,  therefore, 
furnished  no  real  remedy  for  the  evils  which  af 
flicted  the  country.  It  was  vigorously  opposed  by 
Hamilton,  Madison,  Wilson,  and  King.  Hamil 
ton,  indeed,  took  this  occasion  to  offer  a  plan  of 
his  own,  which,  in  addition  to  Madison's  scheme  of 
a  purely  national  legislature,  contained  the  fea 
tures  of  a  tenure  for  life  or  good  behaviour,  for  the 
executive  and  the  members  of  the~-opper  house/ 
But  to  most  of  the  delegates  this  scheme  seemed 
too  little  removed  from  a  monarchy,  and  Hamil 
ton's  brilliant  speech  in  its  favour,  while  applauded 
by  many,  was  supported  by  none.  The  weighty 
arguments  of  Wilson,  King,  and  Madison  pre 
vailed,  and  the  New  Jersey  plan  lost  its  original 
shape  when  it  was  decided  that  Congress  should 
consist  of  two  houses.  The  principle  of  equal 
state  representation,  however,  remained  as  a  stum 
bling-block.  Paterson,  supported  by  his  able  col 
league  Brearley,  as  well  as  by  Martin  and  the  two 
irreconcilables  from  New  York,  stoutly  maintained 
that  to  depart  from  this  principle  would  be  to  ex 
ceed  the  powers  of  the  convention,  which  assuredly 
was  not  intended  to  remodel  the  government  from 
beginning  to  end.  But  Randolph  answered, 
"  When  the  salvation  of  the  republic  is  at  stake,  it 
would  be  treason  to  our  trust  not  to  propose  what 
we  find  necessary;"  and  Hamilton  pithily  re 
minded  the  delegates  that  as  they  were  there  only 
for  the  purpose  of  recommending  a  scheme  which 
would  have  to  be  submitted  to  the  states  for  accept- 


THE  FEDERAL   CONVENTION.          247 

atice,  they  need  not  be  deterred  by  any  false  scru 
ples  from  using  their  wits  to  the  best  possible  ad 
vantage.  The  debate  on  the  merits  of  the  question 
was  an  angry  one.  According  to  the  Virginia 
plan,  said  Brearly,  the  three  states  of  Virginia, 
Massachusetts,  and  Pennsylvania  will  carry  every 
thing  before  them.  "  It  was  known  to  him,  from 
facts  within  New  Jersey,  that  where  large  and 
small  counties  were  united  into  a  district  for  elect' 
ing  representatives  for  the  district,  the  large  coun 
ties  always  carried  their  point,  and  consequently 
the  large  states  would  do  so.  ...  Was  it  fair, 
on  the  other  hand,  that  Georgia  should  have  an 
equal  vote  with  Virginia  ?  He  would  not  say  it 
was.  What  remedy,  then  ?  One  only :  that  a 
map  of  the  United  States  be  spread  out,  that  all 
the  existing  boundaries  be  erased,  and  that  a  new 
partition  of  the  whole  be  made  into  thirteen  equal 
parts."  "  Yes,"  said  Paterson,  "  a  confederacy 
supposes  sovereignty  in  the  members  composing  it, 
and  sovereignty  supposes  equality.  If  we  are  to 
be  considered  as  a  nation,  all  state  distinctions 
must  be  abolished,  the  whole  must  be  thrown  into 
hotchpot,  and  when  an  equal  division  is  made  then 
there  may  be  fairly  an  equality  of  representation." 
This  argument  was  repeated  with  a  triumphant 
air,  as  seeming  to  reduce  the  Virginia  plan  to  ab 
surdity.  Paterson  went  on  to  say  that  "  there 
was  no  more  reason  that  a  great  individual  state, 
contributing  much,  should  have  more  votes  than  a 
small  one,  contributing  little,  than  that  a  rich  indi 
vidual  citizen  should  have  more  votes  than  an  in 
digent  one.  If  the  ratable  property  of  A  was  to 


248         THE  FEDERAL   CONVENTION. 

that  of  B  as  forty  to  one,  ought  A,  for  that  reason, 
to  have  forty  times  as  many  votes  as  B  ?  .  .  .  Give 
the  large  states  an  influence  in  proportion  to  their 
magnitude,  and  what  will  be  the  consequence  ? 
Their  ambition  will  be  proportionally  increased, 
and  the  small  states  will  have  everything  to  fear. 
It  was  once  proposed  by  Galloway  [in  the  first 
Continental  Congress]  that  America  should  be  rep 
resented  in  the  British  Parliament,  and  then  be 
bound  by  its  laws.  America  could  not  have  been  en 
titled  to  more  than  one  third  of  the  representatives 
which  would  fall  to  the  share  of  Great  Britain : 
would  American  rights  and  interests  have  been 
safe  under  an  authority  thus  constituted  ?  "  Then, 
warming  with  the  subject,  he  exclaimed,  If  the 
great  states  wish  to  unite  on  such  a  plan,  "  let 
them  unite  if  they  please,  but  let  them  remember 
that  they  have  no  authority  to  compel  the  others 
to  unite.  .  .  .  Shall  I  submit  the  welfare  of  New 
Jersey  with  five  votes  in  a  council  where  Virginia 
has  sixteen  ?  .  .  .  I  will  never  consent  to  the  pro 
posed  plan.  I  will  not  only  oppose  it  hereT^but  on 
my  return  home  will  do  everything  in  my  power  to 
defeat  it  there.  Neither  my  state  nor  myself  will 
ever  submit  to  tyranny." 

Paterson  was  ably  answered  by  James  Wilson, 
of  Pennsylvania,  who  pointed  out  the  absurdity  of 
giving  180,000  men  in  one  part  of  the  country  as 
much  weight  in  the  national  legislature  as  750,000 
in  another  part.  It  is  unjust,  he  said.  "The 
gentleman  from  New  Jersey  is  candid.  He  de 
clares  his  opinions  boldly.  I  commend  him  for  it. 
I  will  be  equally  candid.  ...  I  never  will  con- 


THE  FEDERAL   CONVENTION.          249 

federate  on  his  principles."  The  convention  grew 
nervous  and  excited  over  this  seemingly  irreconcil 
able  antagonism.  The  discussion  was  kept  up  with 
much  learning  and  acuteness  by  Madison,  Ells 
worth,  and  Martin,  and  history  was  ransacked  for 
testimony  from  the  Amphiktyonic  Council  to  Old 
Sarum,  and  back  again  to  the  Lykian  League. 
Madison,  rightly  reading  the  future,  declared  that 
if  once  the  proposed  union  should  be  formed,  the 
real  danger  would  come  not  from  the  rivalry  be 
tween  large  and  small  states,  but  from  the  antago 
nistic  interests  of  the  slaveholding  and  non-slave- 
holding  states.  Hamilton  pointed  out  that  in  the 
state  of  New  York  five  counties  had  a  majority  of 
the  representatives,  and  yet  the  citizens  of  the  other 
counties  were  in  no  danger  of  tyranny,  as  the  laws 
have  an  equal  operation  upon  all.  Eufus  King 
called  attention  to  the  fact  that  tbejrights  of  Scot- 
land  were  secure  from  encroachments,  although 
her  representation  in  Parliament  was  necessarily 
smaller  than  that  of  England.  But  New  Jersey  and 
Delaware,  mindful  of  recent  grievances,  were  not 
to  be  argued  down  or  soothed.  Gunning  Bedford 
of  Delaware  was  especially  violent.  "  Pretences 
to  support  ambition,"  said  he,  "  are  never  wanting. 
The  cry  is,  Where  is  the  danger  ?  and  it  is  insisted 
that  although  the  powers  of  the  general  government 
will  be  increased,  yet  it  will  be  for  the  good  of  the 
whole  ;  and  although  the  three  great  states  form 
nearly  a  majority  of  the  people  of  America,  they 
never  will  injure  the  lesser  states.  Gentlemen,  1 
do  not  trust  you.  If  you  possess  the  power,  the 
abuse  of  it  could  not  be  checked ;  and  what  then 


250         THE  FEDERAL   CONVENTION. 

would  prevent  you  from  exercising  it  to  our  de 
struction?  .  .  .  Sooner  than  be  ruined,  there  are 
foreign  powers  who  will  take  us  by  the  hand.  I 
say  this  not  to  threaten  or  intimidate,  but  that  we 
should  reflect  seriously  before  we  act."  This  lan 
guage  called  forth  a  rebuke  from  Ruf  us  King.  "  1 
am  concerned,"  said  he,  "  for  what  fell  from  the 
gentleman  from  Delaware,  —  take  a  foreign  power 
by  the  hand !  I  am  sorry  he  mentioned  it,  and  I 
hope  he  is  able  to  excuse  it  to  himself  on  the  score 
of  passion." 

The  situation  had  become  dangerous.  "  The 
convention,"  said  Martin,  "  was  on  the  verge  of  dis 
solution,  scarce  held  together  by  the  strength  of  a 
hair."  When  things  were  looking  darkest,  Oliver 
Ellsworth  and  Roger  Sherman  suggested  a  com 
promise.  "  Yes,"  said  Franklin,  "  when  a  joiner 
wishes  to  fit  two  boards,  he  sometimes  pares  off  a  bit 
from  both."  The  famous  Connecticut  compromise 
led  the  way  to  the  arrangement  which 

The  Connect!-  .       J 

cutcompro-  was  ultimately  adopted,  according  tfo 
which  the  national  principle  was  to  pre 
vail  in  the  House  of  Representatives,  and  the  federal 
principle  in  the  Senate.  But  at  first  the  compromise 
met  with  little  favour.  Neither  party  was  willing 
to  give  way.  "  No  compromise  for  us,"  said  Lu 
ther  Martin.  "  You  must  give  each  state  an  equal 
suffrage,  or  our  business  is  at  an  end."  "  Then  we 
are  come  to  a  full  stop,"  said  Roger  Sherman.  "  J 
suppose  it  was  never  meant  that  we  should  break 
up  without  doing  something."  When  the  question 
as  to  allowing  equality  of  suffrage  to  the  states  in 
the  Federal  Senate  was  put  to  vote,  the  result  was 


THE  FEDERAL   CONVENTION.          251 

a  tie.  Connecticut,  New  York,  New  Jersey,  Dela 
ware,  and  Maryland  —  five  states  —  voted  in  the 
affirmative ;  Massachusetts,  Pennsylvania,  Vir 
ginia,  North  Carolina,  and  South  Carolina  —  five 
states  —  voted  in  the  negative  ;  the  vote  of  Georgia 
was  divided  and  lost.  It  was  Abraham  Baldwin,  a 
native  of  Connecticut  and  lately  a  tutor  in  Yale 
College,  a  recent  emigrant  to  Georgia,  who  thus 
divided  the  vote  of  that  state,  and  prevented  a  de 
cision  which  would  in  all  probability  have  broketi 
up  the  convention.  His  state  was  the  last  to  vote, 
and  the  house  was  hushed  in  anxious  expectation, 
when  this  brave  and  wise  young  man  yielded  his 
private  conviction  to  what  he  saw  to  be  the  para 
mount  necessity  of  keeping  the  convention  together. 
All  honour  to  his  memory  ! 

The  moral  effect  of  the  tie  vote  was  in  favour  of 
the  Connecticut  compromise ;  for  no  one  could  doubt 
that  the  little  states,  New  Hampshire  and  Rhode 
Island,  had  they  been  represented  in  the  division, 
would  have  voted  upon  that  side.  The  matter  was 
referred  to  a  committee  as  impartially  constituted 
as  possible,  with  Elbridge  Gerry  as  chairman  ;  and 
on  the  5th  of  July,  after  a  recess  of  three  days,  the 
committee  reported  in  favour  of  the  compromise. 
Fresh  objections  on  the  part  of  the  large  states 
were  now  offered  by  Wilson  and  Gouverneur  Mor 
ris,  and  gloom  again  overhung  the  convention. 
Gerry  said  that,  while  he  did  not  fully  approve  of 
the  compromise,  he  had  nevertheless  supported  it, 
because  he  felt  sure  that  if  nothing  were  done  war 
and  confusion  must  ensue,  the  old  confederation 
being  already  virtually  at  an  end.  George  Mason 


252         THE  FEDERAL  CONVENTION. 

observed  that  "  it  could  not  be  more  inconvenient 
for  any  gentleman  to  remain  absent  from  his  pri 
vate  affairs  than  it  was  for  him ;  but  he  would  bury 
his  bones  in  that  city  rather  than  expose  his  country 
to  the  consequences  of  a  dissolution  of  the  conven 
tion."  Mason's  subsequent  behaviour  was  hardly 
in  keeping  with  the  promise  of  this  brave  speech, 
and  in  Gerry  we  shall  observe  like  inconsistency. 
At  present  a  timely  speech  from  Madison  soothed 
the  troubled  waters ;  but  it  was  only  after  eleven 
days  of  somewhat  more  tranquil  debate  that  the 
compromise  was  adopted  on  the  16th  of  July.  Even 
then  it  was  but  narrowly  secured.  The  ayes  were 
Connecticut,  New  Jersey,  Delaware,  Maryland, 
and  North  Carolina,  —  five  states  ;  the  noes  were 
Pennsylvania,  Virginia,  South  Carolina,  and  Geor 
gia,  —  four  states  ;  Gerry  and  Strong  against  King 
and  Gorham  divided  the  vote  of  Massachusetts, 
which  was  thus  lost.  New  York,  for  reasons  pres 
ently  to  be  stated,  was  absent.  It  is  accordingly  to 
Elbridge  Gerry  and  Caleb  Strong  that  posterity 
are  indebted  for  here  preventing  a  tie,  and  thus 
bringing  the  vexed  question  to  a  happy  issue. 

According  to  the  compromise  secured  with  so 
much  difficulty,  it  was  arranged  that  in  the  lower 
house  population  was  to  be  represented,  and  in  the 
upper  house  the  states,  each  of  which,  without  re 
gard  to  size,  was  forever  to  be  entitled  to  two  sena 
tors.  In  the  lower  house  there  was  to  be  one  rep 
resentative  for  every  40,000  inhabitants,  but  at 
Washington's  suggestion  the  number  was  changed 
to  30,000,  so  as  to  increase  the  house,  which  then 
seemed  likely  to  be  too  small  in  numbers.  Some 


THE  FEDERAL   CONVENTION.          253 

one  suggested  that  with  the  growth  of  population 
that  rate  would  make  an  unwieldy  house  within  a 
hundred  and  fifty  years  from  that  time,  whereat 
Grorharn  of  Massachusetts  laughed  to  scorn  the 
idea  that  any  system  of  government  they  could 
devise  in  that  room  could  possibly  last  a  hun 
dred  and  fifty  years.  The  difficulty  has  been  sur 
mounted  by  enlarging  from  time  to  time  the  basis 
of  representation.  It  now  seemed  inadvisable  that 
the  senators  should  be  chosen  by  the  lower  house 
out  of  persons  nominated  by  the  state  legislatures  ; 
and  it  was  accordingly  decided  that  they  should 
be  not  merely  nominated,  but  elected,  by  the  state 
legislatures.  Thus  the  Senate  was  made  quite  in 
dependent  of  the  lower  house.  At  the  same  time, 
the  senators  were  to  vote  as  individuals,  and  thus 
the  old  practice  of  voting  by  states,  except  in  cer 
tain  peculiar  emergencies,  was  finally  done  away 
with. 

It  is  seldom,  if  ever,  that  a  political  compromise 
leaves  things  evenly  balanced.  Almost  every  such 
arrangement,  when  once  set  working,  weighs  down 
the  scales  decidedly  to  the  one  side  or  the  other. 
The  Connecticut  compromise  was  really  a  decisive 
victory  for  Madison  and  his  party,  although  it 
modified  the  Virginia  plan  so  considerably.  They 
could  well  afford  to  defer  to  the  fears  and  preju 
dices  of  the  smaller  states  in  the  struc-  K  wag  a  ded 
ture  of  the  Senate,  for  by  securing  a  MS8on°sy£or 
lower  house,  which  represented  the  scheme- 
American  people,  and  not  the  American  states, 
they  won  the  whole  battle  in  so  far  as  the  question 
of  radically  reforming  the  government  was  con« 


254          THE  FEDERAL   CONVENTION. 

cerned.  As  soon  as  the  foundation  was  thus  laid 
for  a  government  which  should  act  directly  upon 
individuals,  it  obviously  became  necessary  to  aban 
don  the  articles  of  confederation,  and  work  out  a 
new  constitution  in  all  its  details.  The  plan,  as 
now  reported,  omitted  the  obnoxious  adjective 
"  national,"  and  spoke  of  the  federal  legislature 
and  federal  courts.  But  to  the  men  who  were  still 
blindly  wedded  to  the  old  confederation  this  sooth 
ing  change  of  phraseology  did  not  conceal  their 
defeat.  On  the  very  day  that  the  compromise  was 
favourably  reported  by  the  committee,  Yates  and 
Lansing  quit  the  convention  in  disgust,  and  went 
home  to  New  York.  After  the  departure  of  these 
uncongenial  colleagues,  Hamilton  might  have  acted 
with  power,  had  he  not  known  too  well  that  the 
sentiment  of  his  state  did  not  support  him.  As  a 
mere  individual  he  could  do  but  little,  and  accord 
ingly  he  went  home  for  a  while  to  attend  to  press 
ing  business,  returning  just  in  time  to  take  part  in 
the  closing  scenes.  His  share  in  the  work  of  f  ram- 
irreconciiabies  ™8  *ke  Federal  Constitution  was  very 
to  home.  small.  About  the  time  that  Hamilton 
returned,  Luther  Martin,  whose  wrath  had  waxed 
hotter  every  day,  as  he  saw  power  after  power  ex 
tended  to  the  federal  government,  at  length  gave 
way  and  went  back  to  Maryland,  vowing  that  he 
would  have  nothing  more  to  do  with  such  high 
handed  proceedings. 

While  the  Connecticut  compromise  thus  scat 
tered  a  few  scintillations  of  discontent,  and  re 
lieved  the  convention  of  some  of  its  most  discordant 
elements,  its  general  effect  was  wonderfully  har- 


THE  FEDERAL   CONVENTION.         255 

monizing.  The  men  who  had  opposed  the  Virginia 
plan  only  through  their  dread  of  the  larger  states 
were  now  more  than  conciliated.  The  concession 
of  equal  representation  in  the  Senate  turned  out 
to  have  been  a  master  stroke  of  diplomacy.  As 
soon  as  the  little  states  were  assured  of  an  equal 
share  in  the  control  of  one  of  the  two  central  legis 
lative  bodies,  they  suddenly  forgot  their  scruples 
about  thoroughly  overhauling  the  government,  and 
none  were  readier  than  they  to  intrust  extensive 
powers  to  the  new  Congress.  Paterson  of  New 
Jersey,  the  fiercest  opponent  of  the  Virginia  plan, 
became  from  that  time  forth  to  the  end  of  his  life 
the  most  devoted  of  Federalists. 

That  first  step  which  proverbially  gives  the  most 
trouble  had  now  been  fairly   taken.     But   other 
compromises  were  needed  before  the  work  of  con 
struction  could  properly  be  carried  out.     As  the^N 
antagonism  between  great  and  small  states  disap-{ 
peared  from  the  scene,  other  antagonisms  appeared.  I 
It  is  worth  noting  that  just  for  a  moment  there  was  i 
revealed  a  glimmering  of  jealousy  and  dread  on 
the  part  of  the  eastern  states   toward  other  antago? 
those  of  which  the  foundations  were  laid 
in  the  northwestern   territory.      Many 
people  in  New  England  feared  that  their  children 
would  be  drawn  westward  in  such  numbers  as  to 
create  immense  states  beyond  the  Ohio ;  and  thus 
it  was  foreseen  that  the  relative  political  weight  of 
New  England  in  the  future  would  be  diminished. 
To  a  certain  extent  this  prediction  has  been  justi 
fied  by  events,  but  Roger  Sherman  rightly  main 
tained  that  it  afforded  no  just  grounds  for  dread. 


256          THE  FEDERAL  CONVENTION. 

King  and  Gerry  introduced  a  most  illiberal  and 
mischievous  motion,  that  the  total  number  of  rep 
resentatives  from  new  states  must  never  be  allowed 
to  exceed  the  total  number  from  the  original  thir 
teen.  Such  an  arrangement,  which  would  surely 
have  been  enough  to  create  that  antagonism  be 
tween  east  and  west  which  it  sought  to  forestall 
and  avoid,  was  supported  by  Massachusetts  and 
Connecticut,  with  Delaware  and  Maryland  ;  but  it 
was  defeated  by  the  combination  of  New  Jersey 
with  the  four  states  south  of  Maryland.  The 
ground  was  thus  cleared  for  a  very  different  kind 
of  sectional  antagonism,  —  that  which,  as  Madison 
truly  said,  would  prove  the  most  deep-seated  and 
enduring  of  all,  —  the  antagonism  between  north 
and  south.  The  first  great  struggle  between  the 
Antagonism  pro-slavery  and  anti-slavery  parties  be- 
StatoSmdS  San  in  tlie  Federal  Convention,  and  it 
states.  resulted  in  the  first  two  of  the  long  series 

of  compromises  by  which  the  irrepressible  conflict 
was  postponed  until  the  north  had  waxed  strong 
enough  to  confront  the  dreaded  spectre  of  secession, 
and,  summoning  all  its  energies  in  one  stupendous 
effort,  exorcise  it  forever.  From  this  moment  down 
to  1865  we  shall  continually  be  made  to  realize 
how  the  American  people  had  entered  into  the 
shadow  of  the  coming  Civil  War  before  they  had 
emerged  from  that  of  the  Revolution ;  and 
as  we  pass  from  scene  to  scene  of  the  solemn  story, 
we  shall  learn  how  to  be  forever  grateful  for  the 
sudden  and  final  clearing  of  the  air  wrought  by 
that  frightful  storm  which  men  not  yet  old  can  still 
so  well  remember. 


/  fairly 

f  «O     \»7£k 


THE  FEDERAL   CONVENTION.         257 

The  first  compromise  related  to  the  distribution 
of  representatives  between  north  and  south.  Wa? 
representation  in  the  lower  house  of  Congress  tc 
be  proportioned  to  wealth,  or  to  population ;  and 
if  the  latter,  were  all  the  inhabitants,  or  only  all 
the  free  inhabitants,  to  be  counted  ?  It  was  soon 
agreed  that  wealth  was  difficult  to  reckon  and  pop 
ulation  easy  to  count ;  and  to  an  extent  sufficient 
for  all  ordinary  purposes,  population  might  serve 
as  an  index  of  wealth.  A  state  with  500,000  in- 
habitants  would  be  in  most  cases  richer  than  one 
with  400,000.  In  those  days,  when  cities  were 
few  and  small,  this  was  approximately  true.  In 
our  day  it  is  not  at  all  true.  A  state  with  large 
commercial  and  manufacturing  cities  is  sure  to  be 
much  richer  than  a  state  in  which  the  population 
is  chiefly  rural.  The  population  of  Massachusetts 
is  somewhat  smaller  than  that  of  Indiana ;  but  her 
aggregate  wealth  is  more  than  double  that  of  In 
diana.  Disparities  like  this,  which  do  not  trouble 
us  to-day,  would  have  troubled  the  Federal  Con 
vention.  We  no  longer  think  it  desirable  to  give 
political  representation  to  wealth,  or  to  anything 
but  persons.  We  have  become  thoroughly  demo 
cratic,  but  our  great-grandfathers  had  not.  To 
them  it  seemed  quite  essential  that  wealth  should 
be  represented  as  well  as  persons;  but  they  got 
over  the  main  difficulty  easily,  because  under  the 
economic  conditions  of  that  time  population  could 
serve  roughly  as  an  index  to  wealth,  and  it  was 
much  easier  to  count  noses  than  to  assess  the  value 
of  farms  and  stock. 

But  now  there  was  in  all  the  southern  states, 


258          THE  FEDERAL   CONVENTION. 

and  in  most  of  the  northern,  a  peculiar  species  of 
collective  existence,  which  might  be  described 
were  slaves  to  eitner  as  wealth  or  as  population.  As 
as  ^rsoufor  human  beings  the  slaves  might  be  de- 
as  chattels?  scribed  as  population,  but  in  the  eye  of 
the  law  they  were  chattels.  In  the  northern  states 
slavery  was  rapidly  disappearing,  and  the  property 
in  negroes  was  so  small  as  to  be  hardly  worth  con 
sidering  ;  while  south  of  Mason  and  Dixon's  line 
this  peculiar  kind  of  property  was  the  chief  wealth 
of  the  states.  But  clearly,  in  apportioning  repre 
sentation,  in  sharing  political  power  in  the  federal 
assembly,  the  same  rule  should  have  been  applied 
impartially  to  all  the  states.  At  this  point,  Pierce 
Butler  and  Cotesworth  Pinckney  of  South  Caro 
lina  insisted  that  slaves  were  part  of  the  popula 
tion,  and  as  such  must  be  counted  in  ascertaining 
the  basis  of  representation.  A  fierce  and  compli 
cated  dispute  ensued.  The  South  Carolina  pro 
posal  suggested  a  uniform  rule,  but  it  was  one  that 
would  scarcely  alter  the  political  weight  of  the 
north,  while  it  would  vastly  increase  the  weight  of 
the  south ;  and  it  would  increase  it  most  in  just 
the  quarter  where  slavery  was  most  deeply  rooted. 
The  power  of  South  Carolina,  as  a  member  of  the 
Union,  would  be  doubled  by  such  a  measure. 
Hence  the  northern  delegates  maintained  that 
slaves,  as  chattels,  ought  no  more  to  be  reckoned 
as  part  of  the  population  than  houses  or  ships 
"Has  a  man  in  Virginia,"  exclaimed  Paterson 
44  a  number  of  votes  in  proportion  to  the  number 
of  his  slaves  ?  And  if  negroes  are  not  represented 
in  the  states  to  which  they  belong,  why  should  they 


THE  FEDERAL   CONVENTION.         259 

be  represented  in  the  general  government?  .  .  . 
If  a  meeting  of  the  people  were  to  take  place  in  a 
slave  state,  would  the  slaves  vote?  They  would 
not.  Why  then  should  they  be  represented  in  a 
federal  government?"  "I  can  never  agree,"  said 
Gouverneur  Morris,  "to  give  such  encouragement 
to  the  slave-trade  as  would  be  given  by  allowing 
the  southern  states  a  representation  for  their  ne 
groes.  ...  I  would  sooner  submit  myself  to  a  tax 
for  paying  for  all  the  negroes  in  the  United  States 
than  saddle  posterity  with  such  a  constitution." 

The  attitude  taken  by  Virginia  was  that  of 
peace-maker.  On  the  one  hand,  such  men  as 
Washington,  Madison,  and  Mason,  who  were  ear 
nestly  hoping  to  see  their  own  state  soon  freed 
from  the  curse  of  slavery,  could  not  fail  to  perceive 
that  if  Virginia  were  to  gain  an  increase  of  politi 
cal  weight  from  the  existence  of  that  institution, 
the  difficulty  of  getting  the  state  legislature  to 
abolish  it  would  be  enhanced.  But  on  the  other 
hand,  they  saw  that  South  Carolina  was  inexorable, 
and  that  her  refusal  to  adopt  the  Constitution  for 
this  reason  would  certainly  carry  Georgia  with 
her,  and  probably  North  Carolina,  also.  Even 
had  South  Carolina  alone  been  involved,  it  was  not 
simply  a  question  of  forming  a  Union  which  should 
either  include  her  or  leave  her  out  in  the  cold. 
The  case  was  much  more  complicated  than  that. 
It  was  really  doubtful  if,  without  the  cordial  as 
sistance  of  South  Carolina,  a  Union  could  be 
formed  at  all.  A  Federal  Constitution  had  no 
only  to  be  framed,  but  it  had  to  be  presented 
the  thirteen  states  for  adoption.  It  was  by  no 


260  THE  FEDERAL   CONVENTION. 

means  clear  that  enough  states  would  ratify  it  to 
enable  the  experiment  of  the  new  government  to  go 
into  operation.  New  York  and  Rhode  Island  were 
known  to  be  bitterly  opposed  to  it ;  Massachusetts 
could  not  be  counted  on  as  sure ;  to  add  South 
Carolina  to  this  list  would  be  to  endanger  every 
thing.  The  event  justified  this  caution.  We  shall 
hereafter  see  that  it  was  absolutely  necessary  to 
satisfy  South  Carolina,  and  that  but  for  her  ratifi 
cation,  coming  just  at  the  moment  when  it  did,  the 
work  of  the  Federal  Convention  would  probably 
have  been  done  in  vain.  It  was  a  clear  perception 
of  the  wonderful  complication  of  interests  involved 
in  the  final  appeal  to  the  people  that  induced  the 
Virginia  statesmen  to  take  the  lead  in  a  compro 
mise.  Four  years  before,  in  1783,  when  Congress 
was  endeavouring  to  apportion  the  quotas  of  rev 
enue  to  be  required  of  the  several  states,  a  similar 
dispute  had  arisen.  If  taxation  were  to  be  distri 
buted  according  to  population,  it  made  a  great  dif 
ference  whether  slaves  were  to  be  counted  as  popu 
lation  or  not.  If  slaves  were  to  be  counted,  the 
southern  states  would  have  to  pay  more  than  their 
equitable  share  into  the  federal  treasury  ;  if  slaves 
were  not  to  be  counted,  it  was  argued  at  the  north 
that  they  would  be  paying  less  than  their  equitable 
share.  Consequently,  at  that  time  the  north  had 
been  inclined  to  maintain  that  the  slaves  were  pop 
ulation,  while  the  south  had  preferred  to  regard 
them  as  chattels.  Thus  we  see  that  in  politics,  af 
well  as  in  algebra,  it  makes  all  the  difference  ir 
the  world  whether  you  start  with  plus  or  with 
minus.  On  that  occasion  Madison  had  offered  a 


THE  FEDERAL   CONVENTION.          261 

successful  compromise,  in  which  a  slave  figured  as 
three  fifths  of   a  freeman ;    and    Rut- 
ledge  of  South  Carolina,  who  was  now  fifths  compro- 
present  in  the  convention,  had  supported  SnlEngS 

r_  ,  ,     ,.  ,     solution,  if 

the  measure.  Madison  now  proposed  ever  there  wa« 
the  same  method  of  getting  over  the  diffi 
culty  about  representation,  and  his  compromise 
was  adopted.  It  was  agreed  that  in  counting  pop- 
ulation,  whether  for  direct  taxation  or  for  repre 
sentation  in  the  lower  house  of  Congress,  five  slaves 
should  be  reckoned  as  three  individuals. 

All  this  was  thoroughly  illogical,  of  course ;  it 
left  the  question  whether  slaves  are  population  or 
chattels  for  theorizers  to  wrangle  over,  and  for 
future  events  to  decide.  It  was  easy  for  James 
Wilson  to  show  that  there  was  neither  rhyme  nor 
reason  in  it :  but  he  subscribed  to  it,  nevertheless, 
just  as  the  northern  abolitionists,  Kufus  King  and 
Gouverneiir  Morris,  joined  with  Washington  and 
Madison,  and  with  the  pro-slavery  Pinckneys,  in 
subscribing  to  it,  because  they  all  believed  that 
without  such  a  compromise  the  Constitution  would 
not  be  adopted ;  and  in  this  there  can  be  little 
doubt  that  they  were  right.  The  evil  consequences 
were  unquestionably  very  serious  indeed.  Hence 
forth,  so  long  as  slavery  lasted,  the  vote  of  a  south 
erner  counted  for  more  than  the  vote  of  a  north 
erner  ;  and  just  where  negroes  were  most  numerous 
the  power  of  their  masters  became  greatest.  In 
South  Carolina  there  soon  came  to  be  more  blacks 
than  whites,  and  the  application  of  the  rule  there 
fore  went  far  toward  doubling  the  vote  of  South 
Carolina  in  the  House  of  Representatives  and  in 


262  THE  FEDERAL  CONVENTION, 

the  electoral  college.  Every  five  slaveholders 
down  there  were  equal  in  political  weight  to  not 
less  than  eight  farmers  or  merchants  in  the  north  ; 
and  thus  this  troublesome  state  acquired  a  power 
of  working  mischief  out  of  all  proportion  to  her 
real  size.  At  a  later  date  the  operation  of  the  rule 
jn  Mississippi  was  similar  ;  and  in  general  it  was 
just  the  most  backward  and  barbarous  parts  of  the 
Union  that  were  thus  favoured  at  the  expense  of 
the  most  civilized  parts.  Admitting  all  this,  how- 
in  other  words,  ever,  it  remains  undeniable  that  the  Con- 
loiut?onhaet-best  stitution  saved  us  from  anarchy  ;  and 
fhlndrceur-der  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  slavery 
and  every  other  remnant  of  barbarism 
in  American  society  would  have  thriven  far  more 
lustily  under  a  state  of  chronic  anarchy  than  was 
possible  under  the  Constitution.  Four  years  of 
concentrated  warfare,  animated  by  an  intense  and 
lofty  moral  purpose,  could  not  hurt  the  character 
or  mar  the  fortunes  of  the  people,  like  a  century  of 
aimless  and  miscellaneous  squabbling  over  a  host 
of  petty  local  interests.  The  War  of  Secession  was 
a  terrible  ordeal  to  pass  through  ;  but  when  one 
tries  to  picture  what  might  have  happened  in  this 
fair  land  without  the  work  of  the  Federal  Conven 
tion,  the  imagination  stands  aghast. 

The   second   great   compromise   between  north* 
/       compromise      ern    an(^    southern  interests  related   to 


IT  the  abolition  of  the  foreign  slave-trade 
and  the  P°wer  of  the  federal  govern- 

e^  ment  over  commerce.  All  the  states 
except  South  Carolina  and  Georgia  wished  to  stop 
the  importation  of  slaves  ;  but  the  physical  condi- 


THE  FEDERAL   CONVENTION.         263 

tions  of  rice  and  indigo  culture  exhausted  the 
negroes  so  fast  that  these  two  states  felt  that  their 
industries  would  be  dried  up  at  the  very  source 
if  the  importation  of  fresh  negroes  were  to  be 
stopped.  Cotesworth  Pinckney  accordingly  de 
clared  that  South  Carolina  would  consider  a  vote 
to  abolish  the  slave-trade  as  simply  a  polite  way  of 
telling  her  that  she  was  not  wanted  in  the  Union. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  three  New  England  states 
present  in  the  convention  had  made  up  their  minds 
that  it  would  not  do  to  allow  the  several  states  any 
longer  to  regulate  commerce  each  according  to  its 
own  whim.  It  was  of  vital  importance  that  this 
power  should  be  taken  from  the  states  and  lodged 
in  Congress ;  otherwise,  the  Union  would  soon  be 
rent  in  pieces  by  commercial  disputes.  The  policy 
of  New  York  had  thoroughly  impressed  this  lesson 
upon  all  the  neighbouring  states.  But  none  of  the 
southern  states  were  in  favour  of  granting  this  power 
unreservedly  to  Congress.  If  a  navigation  act 
could  be  passed  by  a  simple  majority  in  Congress, 
it  was  feared  that  the  New  Englanders  would  get 
all  the  carrying  trade  into  their  own  hands,  and 
then  charge  ruinous  freights  for  carrying  rice,  in 
digo,  and  tobacco  to  the  north  and  to  Europe.  On 
this  point,  accordingly,  the  southern  delegates  acted 
as  a  unit  in  insisting  that  Congress  should  not  be 
empowered  to  pass  navigation  acts,  except  by  a  two 
thirds  vote  of  both  houses.  This  would  have  tied 
the  hands  of  the  federal  government  most  unfortu 
nately  ;  and  the  New  Englanders,  enlightened  by 
their  own  interests,  saw  it  to  be  so.  Here  were  the 
materials  ready  for  a  compromise,  or,  as  the  stout 


264  THE  FEDERAL   CONVENTION. 

abolitionist,  Gouverneur  Morris,  truly  called  it,  a 
"  bargain "  between  New  England  and  the  far 
south.  New  Hampshire,  Massachusetts,  and  Con 
necticut  consented  to  the  prolonging  of  the  foreign 
slave-trade  for  twenty  years,  or  until  1808  ;  and  in 
return  South  Carolina  and  Georgia  consented  to 
the  clause  empowering  Congress  to  pass  navigation 
acts  and  otherwise  regulate  commerce  by  a  simple 
majority  of  votes.  At  the  same  time,  as  a  conces 
sion  to  rice  and  indigo,  the  New  Englanders  agreed 
that  Congress  should  be  forever  prohibited  from 
taxing  exports  ;  and  thus  one  remnant  of  mediaeval 
political  economy  was  neatly  swept  away. 

This  compromise  was  carried  against  the  sturdy 
opposition  of  Virginia.  The  language  of  George 
Mason  of  Virginia  is  worth  quoting,  for  it  was 
such  as  Theodore  Parker  might  have  used.  He 
called  the  slave-trade  "  this  infernal  traffic."  "  Slav^ 
Tim  last  com-  ®ry,"  said  he,  "  discourages  arts  and 
manufactures.  The  poor  despise  la- 
bour  when  performed  by  slaves.  They 
prevent  the  immigration  of  whites,  who 
really  strengthen  and  enrich  a  country.  They  pro 
duce  the  most  pernicious  effect  on  manners.  Every 
master  of  slaves  is  born  a  petty  tyrant.  They 
bring  the  judgment  of  Heaven  on  a  country.  As 
nations  cannot  be  rewarded  or  punished  in  the  next 
world,  they  must  be  in  this.  By  an  inevitable 
chain  of  causes  and  effects,  Providence  punishes 
national  sins  by  national  calamities."  But  these 
prophetic  words  were  powerless  against  the  combi 
nation  of  New  England  with  the  far  south.  One 
thing  was  now  made  certain,  —  that  the  vast  in- 


THE  FEDERAL    CONVENTION.         265 

fluence  of  Rutledge  and  the  Pinckneys  would  be 
thrown  unreservedly  in  behalf  of  the  new  Consti 
tution.  "  I  will  confess,"  said  Cotesworth  Pinck- 
ney,  "  that  I  had  prejudices  against  the  eastern 
states  before  I  came  here,  but  I  have  found  them 
as  liberal  and  candid  as  any  men  whatever."  But 
this  compromise,  which  finally  secured  South  Caro 
lina  and  Georgia,  made  Virginia  for  the  moment 
doubtful ;  for  Mason  and  Kandolph  were  so  dis 
gusted  at  the  absolute  power  over  commerce  con 
ceded  to  Congress  that,  when  the  Constitution  was 
finished  and  engrossed  »n  paper,  they  refused  to 
sign  it. 

It  is  difficult  to  read  this  or  any  other  episode  in 
our  history  whereby  negro  slavery  was  extended 
and  fostered  without  burning  indignation.  But 
this  is  not  the  proper  mood  for  the  historian,  whose 
aim  is  to  interpret  men's  actions  by  the  circum 
stances  of  their  time,  in  order  to  judge  their  mo 
tives  correctly.  In  1787  slavery  was  the  cloud  like 
unto  a  man's  hand  which  portended  a  deluge,  but 
those  who  could  truly  read  the  signs  were  few. 
From  north  to  south,  slavery  had  been  slowly 
dying  out  for  nearly  fifty  years.  It  had  become 
extinct  in  Massachusetts,  it  was  nearly  so  in  all  the 
other  northern  states,  and  it  had  just  been  forever 
prohibited  in  the  national  domain.  In  Maryland 
and  Virginia  there  was  a  strong  and  growing  party 
in  favour  of  abolition.  The  movement  had  even 
gathered  strength  in  North  Carolina.  Only  the 
rice-swamps  of  the  far  south  remained  wedded  to 
their  idols.  It  was  quite  generally  believed  that 
slavery  was  destined  speedily  to  expire,  to  give 


266 


THE  FEDERAL   CONVENTION. 


place  to  a  better  system  of  labour,  without  any 
great  danger  or  disturbance  ;  and  this  opinion  was 
distinctly  set  forth  by  many  delegates  in  the  con 
vention.1  Even  Charles  Pinckney  went  so  far  as 
to  express  a  hope  that  South  Carolina,  if  not  too 
much  meddled  with,  would  by  and  by  voluntarily 
rank  herself  among  the  emancipating  states ;  but 
his  older  cousin  declared  himself  bound  in  candour 
to  acknowledge  that  there  was  very  little  likelihood 
indeed  of  so  desirable  an  event.  Not  even  these 
South  Carolinians  ventured  to  defend  slavery  on 
principle.  This  belief  in  the  moribund  condition 
of  slavery  prevented  the  convention  from  realizing 
the  actual  effect  of  the  concessions  which  were 
made.  Scarcely  any  cotton  was  grown  at  that  time, 
and  none  was  sent  to  England.  The  industrial 
revolution  about  to  be  wrought  by  the  inventions 
of  Arkwright  and  Hargreaves,  Cartwright  and 
Watt  and  Whitney,  could  not  be  foreseen.  Nor 
could  it  be  foreseen  that  presently,  when  there 
should  thus  arise  a  great  demand  for  slaves  from 
Virginia  as  a  breeding-ground,  the  abolitionist 

1  The  slave-population  of  the  United  States,  according  to  the 
vensus  of  1790,  was  thus  distributed  among  the  states  :  — 


North. 
New  Hampshire      .     .     .     158 

South. 
Delaware  .     . 
Maryland  .     . 
Virginia     .     . 
North  Carolina 
South  Carolina 
Georgia     .     . 
Kentucky 
Tennessee     . 

,    697 

.    8,887 
103,036 
293,427 
100,572 
107,094 
.   29,264 
.   11,830 
.     3,417 

Massachusetts 
Rhode  Island 
Connecticut     . 
New  York      . 
New  Jersey    . 
Pennsylvania  . 

Total    , 

.    952 
2,759 
21,324 
11,423 
3,737 
40,370 

657,527 
897. 

THE  FEDERAL   CONVENTION.          267 

party  in  that  state  would  disappear,  leaving  her  to 
join  in  the  odious  struggle  for  introducing  slavery 
into  the  national  domain.  Though  these  things 
were  so  soon  to  happen,  the  wisest  man  in  1787 
could  not  foresee  them.  The  convention  hoped 
that  twenty  years  would  see  not  only  the  end  of  the 
foreign  slave-trade,  but  the  restriction  and  diminu 
tion  of  slavery  itself.  It  was  in  such  a  mood  that 
they  completed  the  compromise  by  recommending 
a  tariff  of  ten  dollars  a  head  upon  all  negroes  im 
ported,  while  at  the  same  time  a  clause  was  added 
for  insuring  the  recovery  of  fugitive  slaves,  quite 
similar  to  the  clause  in  the  ordinance  for  the  gov 
ernment  of  the  northwestern  territory. 

It  wag  the  three  grejat  compromises  here  de- 
scribed  that  laid  the  foundations  of  our  Federal 
Constitution.  The  first  compromise,  by  conceding 
equal^  representation  to  the  states  in"the_Sejiate, 
enlisted  the  small  states  in  f  avourof  the  T^  f0unda. 
scEeme^and  by  establiahing^Tjuir 


tional   system  of  representation  i5T  the 
lower  house,  prepared  the  way  forVgpv-  E 
ernment  that  could  enduee.     This  was  Madison's 
great  victory,  secured  by  the  aid  of  Sherman  and 
Ellsworth,  without  which  nothing  could  have  been 
effected.     The  second  compromise,  at  the  cost  of 
giving  disproportionate  weight  to  the  slave  states, 
gained  their  support  for  the  more  perfect  union 
that  was  about  to  be  formed.     The  third  compro 
mise,  at   the  cost  .  of   postponing  fortwj 
the  abolition  of  the  foreign  slave  trade,  secured  ab 
solute  free-trade  "between  the  states,  with  the  sur 
render  of  all  control  over  commerce  into  the  hands 


268  THE  FEDERAL   CONVENTION. 

of  the  federal  government.  After  these  steps  had 
been  taken,  the  most  difficult  and  dangerous  part 
of  the  road  had  been  travelled;  the  remainder, 
though  extremely  important,  was  accomplished  far 
more  easily.  It  was  mainly  the  task  of  building  on 
the  foundations  already  laid. 

In  the  grants  to  the  federal  government  of 
powers  hitherto  reserved  to  the  several  states,  the 
diversity  of  opinion  among  the  members  of  the 
convention  was  but  slight  compared  to  the  pro 
found  antagonism  which  had  been  allayed  by  the 
three  initial  compromises.  It  was  admitted,  as  a 
matter  of  course,  that  the  federal  government  alone 
Powers  rant-  cou^  coin  money,  fix  the  standard  of 
lraito  ovlm-d~  weignts  an(l  measures,  establish  post- 
ment.  offices  and  post-roads,  and  grant  patents 

and  copyrights;  To  it  alone  was  naturally  in 
trusted  the  whole  business  of  war  and  of  interna 
tional  relations.  It  could  define  and  punish  felonies 
committed  on  the  high  seas ;  it  could  maintain  a 
navy  and  issue  letters  of  marque  and  reprisal ;  it 
could  support  an  army  and  provide  for  calling 
forth  the  militia  to  execute  the  laws  of  the  Union, 
to  suppress  insurrections,  and  to  repel  invasions. 
But  in  relation  to  this  question  of  the  army  and 
the  militia  there  was  some  characteristic  discussion. 
It  was  at  first  proposed  that  Congress  should  have 
the  power  "  to  subdue  a  rebellion  in  any  state  on 
the  application  of  its  legislature."  The  Shays  re 
bellion  was  then  fresh  in  the  memory  of  all  the 
delegates,  and  their  arguments  simply  reflected 
the  impression  which  that  unpleasant  affair  had 
left  upon  them.  Charles  Pinckney,  Gouverneur 


THE  FEDERAL   CONVENTION.          269 

Morris,  and  John  Langdon  wished  to  have  the 
power  given  to  Congress  unconditionally,  without 
waiting  for  an  application  from  the  legislature. 
But  Gerry,  who  had  been  on  the  ground,  spoke 
sturdily  against  such  a  needless  infraction  of  state 
rights.  He  was  utterly  opposed,  he  said,  to  "  let 
ting  loose  the  myrmidons  of  the  United  States  on 
a  state  without  its  own  consent.  The  states  will  be 
the  best  judges  in  such  cases.  More  blood  would 
have  been  spilt  in  Massachusetts  in  the  late  insur 
rection  if  the  general  authority  had  intermeddled." 
Ellsworth  suggested  that  Congress  should  use  its 
discretion  only  in  cases  where  the  legislature  of  the 
state  could  not  meet ;  but  Randolph  forcibly  re 
plied  that  if  Congress  is  to  judge  whether  a  state 
legislature  can  or  cannot  meet,  the  difficulty  is  in 
no  wise  surmounted.  Gerry's  view  at  last  pre 
vailed,  and  in  accordance  therewith  it  was  decided 
that  the  federal  power  should  guarantee  to  every 
state  a  republican  form  of  government,  and  should 
protect  each  of  them  against  invasion ;  and  on  ap 
plication  of  the  legislature,  or  of  the  executive  (if 
the  legislature  could  not  be  convened),  it  should 
protect  them  against  domestic  violence.  This  ar 
rangement  did  not  fully  provide  against  such  an 
emergency  as  that  of  rival  and  hostile  executives 
in  the  same  state,  as  under  the  so-called  "  carpet 
bag  "  governments  which  followed  after  the  War 
of  Secession,  but  it  was  doubtless  as  sound  a  provi 
sion  as  any  general  constitution  could  make. 

The  federal  government  was  further  empowered 
to  borrow  money  on  the  credit  of  the  United  States ; 
and  it  was  declared  that  all  debts  contracted  and 


270  THE  FEDERAL   CONVENTION. 

engagements  entered  into  before  the  adoption  of 
this  constitution  should  be  as  valid  against  the 
United  States  under  this  constitution  as  under  the 
confederation.  There  was  to  be  no  repudiation  or 
readjustment  of  debts  on  the  ground  of  inability  to 
pay.  Congress  was  further  empowered  to  establish 
a  uniform  rule  of  naturalization  and  a  uniform  law 
of  bankruptcy.  But  it  was  prohibited  from  passing 
bills  of  attainder  or  ex  post  facto  laws,  or  suspend 
ing  the  writ  of  habeas  corpus,  except  under  the 
stress  of  rebellion  or  invasion.  It  was  provided 
that  all  duties,  imposts,  or  excises  should  be  uni 
form  throughout  the  United  States.  The  federal 
government  could  not  give  preference  to  one  state 
over  another  in  its  commercial  regulations.  It 
could  not  tax  exports.  It  could  not  draw  money 
from  the  treasury  save  by  due  process  of  appro 
priation,  and  all  bills  relating  to  the  raising  of 
revenue  must  originate  in  the  lower  house,  which 
A  .  directly  represented  the  people.  Congress  was 
empowered  to  admit  new  states  into  the  Union, 
but  it  was  not  allowed  to  interfere  with  the  terri 
torial  areas  of  states  already  existing  without  the 
express  consent  of  the  local  legislatures.  To  insure 
the  independence  of  the  federal  government,  it  was 
provided  that  senators  and  representatives  should 
be  paid  out  of  the  federal  treasury,  and  not  by 
their  respective  states,  as  had  been  the  case  under 
the  confederation.  Except  for  such  offences  as 
treason,  felony,  or  breach  of  the  peace,  they  should 
be  "  privileged  from  arrest  during  their  attendance 
at  the  session  of  their  respective  houses,  and  in 
going  to  or  returning  from  the  same ;  and  for  any 


THE  FEDERAL   CONVENTION.          271 

speech  or  debate  in  either  house  "  they  were  not  to 
be  "  questioned  in  any  other  place."  It  was  fur 
ther  provided  that  a  territory  not  exceeding  ten 
miles  square  should  be  ceded  to  the  United  States, 
and  set  apart  as  the  site  of  a  federal  city,  in  which 
the  general  government  should  ever  after  hold  its 
meetings,  erect  its  buildings,  and  exercise  exclusive 
jurisdiction.  During  the  past  four  years  the  Con 
tinental  Congress  had  skipped  about  from  Phila 
delphia  to  Princeton,  to  Annapolis,  to  Trenton,  to 
New  York,  until  it  had  become  a  laughing-stock, 
and  the  newspapers  were  full  of  squibs  about  it. 
Verily,  said  one  facetious  editor,  the  Lord  shall 
make  this  government  like  unto  a  wheel,  and  keep 
it  rolling  back  and  forth  betwixt  Dan  and  Beer- 
sheba,  and  grant  it  no  rest  this  side  of  Jordan. 
This  inconvenience  was  now  to  be  remedied.  Con 
gress  was  hereafter  to  have  a  federal  police  force 
at  its  disposal,  and  was  never  more  to  be  reduced 
to  the  humiliation  of  a  fruitless  appeal  to  the  pro 
tecting  arm  of  a  state  government,  as  at  Philadel 
phia  in  the  summer  of  1783.  Furthermore,  the 
Continental  Congress  had  of  late  years  commanded 
so  little  respect,  and  had  offered  so  few  tempta 
tions  to  able  men  in  quest  of  political  distinction, 
that  its  meetings  were  often  attended  by  no  more 
than  eight  or  ten  members.  It  was  actually  on  the 
point  of  dying  a  natural  death  through  sheer  lack 
of  public  interest  in  it.  To  prevent  any  possible 
continuance  of  such  a  disgraceful  state  of  things, 
it  was  agreed  that  the  Federal  Congress  should  be 
"authorized  to  compel  the  attendance  of  absent 
members,  in  such  manner  and  under  such  penalties 


272  THE  FEDERAL   CONVENTION. 

as  each  house  may  provide."  Had  the  political 
life  of  the  country  continued  to  go  on  as  under  the 
confederation,  it  is  very  doubtful  whether  such  a 
provision  as  this  would  have  remedied  the  evil. 
But  the  new  Federal  Congress,  drawing  its  life 
directly  from  the  people,  was  destined  to  afford  far 
greater  opportunities  for  a  political  career  than 
were  afforded  by  the  feeble  body  of  delegates  which 
preceded  it  ;  and  a  penal  clause,  compelling  mem 
bers  to  attend  its  meetings,  was  hardly  needed 
under  the  new  circumstances  which  arose. 

While  the  powers  of  the  federal  government 
were  thus  carefully  denned,  at  the  same  time  sev 
eral  powers  were  expressly  denied  to  the  states.  No 
state  was  allowed,  without  explicit  authority  from 
Congress,  to  lay  any  tonnage  or  custom- 
to  the  house  duties,  "  keep  troops  or  ships  of 

.          .  „ 

war  in  time  of  peace,  enter  into  any 
agreement  or  compact  with  another  state  or  with 
a  foreign  power,  or  engage  in  war  unless  actually 
invaded,  or  in  such  imminent  danger  as  will  not 
admit  of  delays."  The  following  clause  provided 
against  a  recurrence  of  some  of  the  worst  evils 
which  had  been  felt  under  the  "  league  of  friend 
ship  :  "  "  No  state  shall  enter  into  any  treaty, 
alliance,  or  confederation  ;  grant  letters  of  marque 
and  reprisal  ;  coin  money  ;  emit  bills  of  credit  ; 
make  anything  but  gold  and  silver  coin  a  tender  in 
payment  of  debts  ;  pass  any  bill  of  attainder,  ex 
post  facto  law,  or  law  impairing  the  obligation  of 
contracts  ;  or  grant  any  title  of  nobility."  Hence 
forth  there  was  to  be  no  repetition  of  such  difc 
graceful  scenes  as  had  lately  been  witnessed  in 


states. 


THE  FEDERAL   CONVENTION.         273 

Rhode  Island.  So  far  as  the  state  legislatures 
were  concerned,  paper  money  was  to  be  ruled  out 
forever.  But  how  was  it  with  the  federal  govern* 
ment  ?  By  the  articles  of  confederation  the  United 
States  were  allowed  to  issue  bills  of  credit,  and 
make  them  a  tender  in  payment  of  debts.  In  the 
Federal  Convention  the  committee  of  detail  sug 
gested  that  this  permission  might  remain  under 
the  new  constitution  ;  but  the  suggestion  was  al 
most  unanimously  condemned.  All  the  ablest  men 
in  the  convention  spoke  emphatically  against  it. 
Gouverneur  Morris  urged  that  the  federal  govern* 
ment,  no  less  than  the  state  governments, 
should  be  expressly  prohibited  from 


,  .,,  .  ,..  .          paper  money. 

issuing  bills  ot  credit,  or  in  any  wise 
making  its  promissory  notes  a  legal  tender.  He 
went  over  the  history  of  the  past  ten  years  ;  he 
called  attention  to  the  obstinacy  with  which  the 
wretched  device  had  been  resorted  to  again  and 
again,  after  its  evils  had  been  thrust  before  every 
body's  eyes  ;  and  he  proved  himself  a  true  prophet 
when  he  said  that  if  the  United  States  should  ever 
again  have  a  great  war  to  conduct,  people  would 
have  forgotten  all  about  these  things,  and  would 
call  for  fresh  issues  of  inconvertible  paper,  with 
similar  disastrous  results.  Now  was  the  time  to 
stop  it  once  for  all.  "  Yes,"  echoed  Roger  Sher 
man,  "  this  is  the  favourable  crisis  for  crushing 
paper  money,"  "  This  is  the  time,"  said  his  col 
league,  Ellsworth,  "  to  shut  and  bar  the  door  against 
paper  money,  which  can  in  no  case  be  necessary. 
Give  the  government  credit,  and  other  resources 
will  offer.  The  power  may  do  harm,  never  good." 


274  THE  FEDERAL   CONVENTION. 

There  was  no  way,  he  added,  in  which  powerful 
friends  could  so  soon  be  gained  for  the  new  consti* 
tution  as  by  withholding  this  power  from  the  gov 
ernment.  James  Wilson  took  the  same  view.  "  It 
will  have  the  most  salutary  influence  on  the  credit 
of  the  .United  States,"  said  he,  "  to  remove  the  pos 
sibility  of  paper  money."  "  Rather  than  grant  the 
power  to  Congress,"  said  John  Langdon,  "  I  would 
reject  the  whole  plan."  "  The  words  which  grant 
this  power,"  said  George  Read  of  Delaware,  "  if 
not  struck  out,  will  be  as  alarming  as  the  mark  of 
the  Beast,  in  the  Apocalypse."  On  none  of  the 
subjects  that  came  up  for  discussion  during  that 
summer  was  the  convention  more  nearly  unanimous 
than  in  its  condemnation  of  paper  money.  The 
only  delegate  who  ventured  to  speak  in  its  favour 
was  Mercer  of  Maryland.  What  Hamilton  would 
have  said,  if  he  had  been  present  that  day,  we  may 
judge  from  his  vigorous  words  published  some  time 
before.  The  power  to  emit  an  inconvertible  paper 
as  a  sign  of  value  ought  never  hereafter  to  be  used  ; 
for  in  its  very  nature,  said  he,  it  is  "  pregnant  with 
abuses,  and  liable  to  be  made  the  engine  of  impo 
sition  and  fraud,  holding  out  temptations  equally 
pernicious  to  the  integrity  of  government  and  to 
the  morals  of  the  people."  Paterson  called  it 
"  sanctifying  iniquity  by  law."  The  same  views 
were  entertained  by  Washington  and  Madison. 
There  were  a  few  delegates,  however,  who  thought 
it  unsafe  to  fetter  Congress  absolutely.  To  use 
Luther  Martin's  expression,  they  did  not  set  them 
selves  up  to  be  "  wise  beyond  every  event."  George 
Mason  said  he  "  had  a  mortal  hatred  to  paper 


THE  FEDERAL   CONVENTION.         275 

money,  yet,  as  he  could  not  foresee  all  emergencies, 
he  was  unwilling  to  tie  the  hands  of  the  legislature. 
The  late  war,"  he  thought,  "  could  not  have  been 
carried  on  had  such  a  prohibition  existed."     Ran 
dolph  spoke  to  the  same  effect.     It  was  finally  de 
cided,  by  the  vote  of  nine  states  against  New  Jersey 
and  Maryland,  that  the  power  to  issue  inconvertible 
paper  should  not  be  granted  to  the  federal  govern 
ment.     An  express  prohibition,  such  as  had  been 
adopted  for  the  separate  states,  was  thought  unnec 
essary.     It  was   supposed  that   it  was   enough  to 
withhold  the  power,  since  the  federal  government 
would  not  venture  to  exercise  it  unless  expressly 
permitted  in  the  Constitution.     "  Thus,"  says  Madi 
son,  in  his  narrative  of  the  proceedings,  "  the  pre 
text  for   a   paper   currency,  and  particularly  for 
making  the  bills  a  tender,  either  for  public  or  pri 
vate  debts,  was  cut  off."     Nothing  could  be  more 
clearly  expressed  than  this.     As  Mr.  Justice  Field 
observes,  in  his  able  dissenting  opinion  in  the  re 
cent  case  of  Juilliard  vs.  Greenman,  "  if  there  be 
anything  in  the  history  of  the  Constitution  which 
can  be  established  with  moral  certainty,  it  is  that 
the  f  ramers  of  that  instrument  intended  to  prohibit 
the  issue  of  legal-tender  notes  both  by  the  general 
government   and  by  the  states,  and  thus  prevent 
interference  with  the  contracts  of  private  parties." 
Such  has  been  the  opinion  of  our  ablest  constitu 
tional   jurists,   Marshall,  Webster,   Story,  Curtis, 
and  Nelson.     There  can  be  little  doubt  that,  ac 
cording  to  all  sound  principles  of  interpretation, 
the  Legal  Tender  Act  of  1862  was  passed  in  fla 
grant  violation  of  the  Constitution.     Could 


276  THE  FEDERAL   CONVENTION. 

worth  and  Morris,  Langdon  and  Madison,  have 
foreseen  the  possibility  of  such  extraordinary  judg 
ments  as  have  lately  emanated  from  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  United  States,  they  would  doubtless 
have  insisted  upon  the  express  prohibition,  instead 
of  leaving  it  to  posterity  to  root  out  the  plague, 
as  it  will  apparently  some  time  have  to  do,  by  the 
cumbrous  process  of  an  amendment  to  the  Consti 
tution. 

The  work  of  the  convention,  as  thus  far  con 
sidered,  related  to  the  legislative  department  of  the 
new  government.  While  these  discussions  were 
going  on,  much  attention  had  been  paid,  from  time 
to  time,  to  the  characteristics  of  the  proposed  fed' 
eral  executive.  The  debates  on  this  question, 
though  long  kept  up,  were  far  less  acrimonious  than 
the  debates  cm  representation  and  the  power  of 
Congress  over  trade,  because  here  there  was  no 
obvious  clashing  of  local  interests.  But  for  this 
very  reason  the  convention  had  no  longer  so  clear 
a  char.t  to  steer  by.  On  the  question  of  the  slave- 
trade,  the  Pinckneys  knew  accurately  just  what 
South  Carolina  wanted,  how  much  it  would  do  to 
claim,  and  how  far  it  would  be  necessary  to  yield. 
As  to  the  regulation  of  commerce  by  a  bare  ma 
jority  of  votes  in  Congress,  King  and  Sherman  on 
the  one  hand,  Mason  and  Kandolph  on  the  other, 
were  able  to  pursue  a  thoroughly  definite  course  of 
action  in  behalf  of  what  were  supposed  to  be  the 
special  interests  of  New  England  or  of  Virginia. 
Consequently,  the  debates  kept  close  to  the  point  •, 
the  controversy  was  keen,  arid  sometimes,  as  we 
have  seen,  angry. 


THE  FEDERAL   CONVENTION.          277 

It  was  very  different  with  the  question  as  to  the 
federal  executive.  Upon  this  point  the  discussions 
were  guided  rather  by  general  speculations  as  to 
what  would  be  most  likely  to  work  well,  and  accord 
ingly  they  wandered  far  and  wide.  Some  of  the 
delegates  seemed  to  think  we  should  sooner  or  later 
come  to  adopt  a  hereditary  monarchy,  and  that  the 
chief  thing  to  be  done  was  to  postpone  the  event  as 
long  as  possible.  Many  wild  ideas  were  broached  : 
such,  for  example,  as  a  triple-headed  executive,  to 
represent  the  eastern,  middle,  and  southern  states.^ 
somewhat  as  associated  Roman  emperors 

.     .  -i       /v    •         •        f       TP      Debates  as  to 

at  times  administered  anairs  in  the  dii-  the  federal 

f  .  ,,  -i  •    •  i     i  •  executive. 

ferent  portions  of  an  undivided  empire. 
The  Virginia  plan  had  not  stated  whether  its  pro 
posed  executive  was  to  be  single  or  plural,  because 
the  Virginia  delegates  could  not  agree.  Madison 
wished,  it  to  be  single,  to  insure  greater  efficiency, 
but  to  Randolph  and  Mason  a  tyranny  seemed  to 
lurk  in  such  an  arrangement.  When  James  Wil 
son  and  Charles  Pinckney  suggested  that  the  execu 
tive  power  should  be  intrusted  into  the  hands  of 
one  man,  a  profound  silence  fell  upon  the  conven 
tion.  No  one  spoke  for  several  minutes,  until 
Washington,  from  the  chair,  asked  if  he  should  put 
the  question.  Franklin  then  got  up,  and  said  it 
was  an  interesting  subject,  and  he  should  like  to 
hear  what  the  members  had  to  say  ;  and  so  the  ball 
was  set  rolling.  Rutledge  said  there  was  no  need 
of  their  being  so  shy.  A  man  might  frankly  ex 
press  his  opinions,  and  afterwards  change  them  if 
he  saw  good  reason  for  so  doing.  For  his  part,  he 
was  in  favour  of  vesting  the  executive  power  in  a 


278  THE  FEDERAL   CONVENTION. 

single  person,  to  secure  efficiency  of  administration 
and  concentration  of  responsibility  ;  but  he  would 
not  give  him  the  power  to  declare  war  and  make 
peace.  Sherman  then  made  the  far-reaching  sug 
gestion,  that  the  executive  magistracy  was  really 
"  nothing  more  than  an  institution  for  carrying  the 
will  of  the  legislature  into  effect ;  that  the  person 
or  persons  ought  to  be  appointed  by  and  account 
able  to  the  legislature  only,  which  was  the  deposi 
tory  of  the  supreme  will  of  the  society.  As  they 
were  the  best  judges  of  the  business  which  ought 
to  be  done  by  the  executive  department,  ...  he 
wished  the  number  might  not  be  fixed,  but  that 
the  legislature  should  be  at  liberty  to  appoint  one 
or  more,  as  experience  might  dictate."  It  would 
greatly  have  astonished  the  convention  had  they 
been  told  that  this  suggestion  of  Sherman's  was  a 
move  in  the  very  same  line  of  development  which 
the  British  government  had  been  following  for 
more  than  half  a  century ;  yet  such,  as  we  shall 
presently  see,  was  the  case.  Had  this  point  been 
understood  then  as  we  understand  it  now,  the  pro 
ceedings  of  the  convention  could  not  have  failed  to 
be  profoundly  affected  by  it.  As  it  was,  the  sug 
gestion  did  not  receive  due  attention,  and  the 
stream  of  discussion  was  turned  into  a  very  differ 
ent  channel.  Wilson  argued  powerfully  in  favour 
of  a  single  chief  magistrate,  and  this  view  finally 
prevailed. 

After  it  had  been  decided  that  there  should  be 
one  man  set  in  so  high  a  position,  there  was  end- 
Jess  discussion  as  to  whether  he  should  be  elected 
by  the  people  or  by  Congress,  and  whether  he 


THE  FEDERAL   CONVENTION.         279 

should  serve  for  one,  or  two,  or  three,  or  four,  or 
ten,  or  fifteen  years.  "Better  call  it  Thereshould 
twenty,"  said  Rufus  King,  sarcastically;  ^7^^ 
"it  is  the  average  reign  of  princes."  he  be  elected. 
Hamilton  and  Gouverneur  Morris  would  have  had 
him  chosen  for  life,  subject  to  removal  for  misbe 
haviour;  but  the  preference  for  a  short  term  of 
service  was  soon  manifest.  As  to  the  method  of 
election,  opinions  oscillated  back  and  forth  for  sev 
eral  weeks.  Wilson  said  "  he  was  almost  unwilling 
to  declare  the  mode  which  he  wished  to  take  place, 
being  apprehensive  that  it  might  appear  chimer 
ical.  He  would  say,  however,  at  least,  that  in 
theory  he  was  for  an  election  by  the  people.  Ex 
perience,  particularly  in  New  York  and  Massachu 
setts,  showed  that  an  election  of  the  first  magis 
trate  by  the  people  at  large  was  both  a  convenient 
and  a  successful  mode.  The  objects  of  choice  in 
such  cases  must  be  persons  whose  merits  have  gen 
eral  notoriety."  Mason,  Rutledge,  and  Strong 
agreed  with  Sherman  that  the  executive  should 
be  chosen  by  the  legislature ;  but  Washington, 
Madison,  Gerry,  and  Gouverneur  Morris  strongly 
disapproved  of  this.  Morris  argued  that  an  elec 
tion  by  the  national  legislature  would  be  the  work 
of  intrigue  and  corruption,  like  the  election  of  the 
king  of  Poland  by  a  diet  of  nobles  ;  but  Mason 
declared,  on  the  other  hand,  that  "  to  refer  the 
choice  of  a  proper  character  for  a  chief  magistrate 
to  the  people  would  be  as  unnatural  as  to  refer  a 
trial  of  colours  to  a  blind  man."  A  decision  was 
first  reached  against  an  election  by  Congress,  be 
cause  it  was  thought  that  if  the  chief  magistrate 


280  THE  FEDERAL   CONVENTION. 

should  prove  himself  thoroughly  competent  he 
ought  to  be  reeligible  ;  but  if  reeligible  he  would 
be  exposed  to  the  temptation  of  truckling  to  the 
most  powerful  party  or  cabal  in  Congress,  in  order 
to  secure  his  reelection.  It  did  not  occur  to  any 
one  to  suggest  that  under  ordinary  circumstances 
the  executive  ought  to  follow  the  policy  of  the  most 
powerful  party  in  Congress,  and  that  he  might  at 
the  same  time  preserve  all  needful  independence 
by  being  clothed  with  the  power  of  dissolving  Con 
gress  and  making  an  appeal  to  the  people  in  a  new 
election.  It  is  interesting  to  consider  what  might 
have  come  of  such  a  suggestion,  following  upon  the 
heels  of  that  made  by  Roger  Sherman.  As  we 
shall  presently  see,  it  would  have  immeasurably 
simplified  the  machinery  of  our  government,  be 
sides  making  the  executive  what  it  ought  to  be,  the 
arm  of  the  legislature,  instead  of  a  separate  and 
coordinate  power.  Upon  this  point  the  minds  of 
nearly  all  the  members  were  so  far  under  the  sway 
of  an  incorrect  theory  that  such  an  idea  occurred 
to  none  of  them.  It  was  decided  that  the  chief 
magistrate  ought  to  be  reeligible,  and  therefore 
should  not  be  elected  by  Congress. 

An  immediate  choice  by  the  people,  however, 
did  not  meet  with  general  favour.     To 


eoifege.°r  obviate  the  difficulty,  Ellsworth  and 
King  suggested  the  device  of  an  electoral  col 
lege,  in  which  the  electors  should  be  chosen  by 
the  state  legislatures,  and  should  hold  a  meeting 
at  the  federal  city  for  the  sole  purpose  of  deciding 
upon  a  chief  magistrate.  It  was  then  objected 
that  it  would  be  difficult  to  find  competent  men 


THE  FEDERAL   CONVENTION.         281 

who  would  be  willing  to  undertake  a  long  journey 
simply  for  such  a  purpose.  The  objection  was  felt 
to  be  a  very  grave  one,  and  so  the  convention  re 
turned  to  the  plan  of  an  election  by  Congress,  and 
again  confronted  the  difficulty  of  the  chief  magis 
trate's  intriguing  to  secure  his  reelection.  Wilson 
thought  to  do  away  with  this  difficulty  by  introdu 
cing  the  element  of  blind  chance,  as  in  some  of  the 
states  of  ancient  Greece,  and  choosing  the  execu 
tive  by  a  board  of  electors  taken  from  Congress 
by  lot ;  but  the  suggestion  found  little  support. 
Dickinson  thought  it  would  be  well  if  the  people  of 
each  state  were  to  choose  its  best  citizen,  —  in 
modern  parlance,  its  "  favourite  son ;  "  then  out  of 
these  thirteen  names  a  chief  magistrate  might  be 
chosen,  either  by  Congress  or  by  a  special  board 
of  electors.  At  length,  on  the  26th  of  July,  at 
the  motion  of  Mason,  the  convention  resolved 
that  there  should  be  a  national  executive,  to  con 
sist  of  a  single  person,  to  be  chosen  by  the  na 
tional  legislature  for  the  term  of  seven  years, 
and  to  be  ineligible  for  a  second  term.  He  was 
to  be  styled  President  of  the  United  States  of 
America. 

This  decision  remained  until  the  very  end  of  Au 
gust,  when  the  whole  question  was  reopened  by  a 
motion  of  Rutledge  that  the  two  houses  of  Congress, 
in  electing  the  president,  should  proceed  by  "  joint 
ballot."  The  object  of  this  motion  was  to  prevent 
either  house  from  exerting  a  negative  on  the  choice 
of  the  other.  It  was  carried  in  spite  of  the  oppo 
sition  of  some  of  the  smaller  state?,  which  might 
hope  to  exercise  a  greater  relative  influence  upon 


282  THE  FEDERAL   CONVENTION. 

the  choice  of  presidents,  if  the  Senate  were  to  vote 
separately.  At  this  point  the  fears  of  Gouverneur 
Morris,  that  an  election  by  Congress  would  result 
in  boundless  intrigue,  were  revived  ;  and  in  a  pow 
erful  speech  he  persuaded  the  convention  to  return 
to  the  device  of  the  electoral  college,  which  might 
be  made  equal  in  number  and  similar  in  composi 
tion  to  the  two  houses  of  Congress  sitting  together. 
It  need  not  be  required  of  the  electors,  after  all, 
that  they  should  make  a  long  journey  to  the  seat 
of  the  federal  government.  They  might  meet  in 
their  respective  states,  and  vote  by  ballot  for  two 
persons,  one  of  whom  must  be  an  inhabitant  of  a 
different  state.  By  this  provision  it  was  hoped  to 
diminish  the  chances  for  extreme  sectional  partial 
ity.  A  list  of  these  votes  might  be  sent  under 
seal  to  the  presiding  officer  of  the  Senate,  to  be 
counted.  Should  no  candidate  turn  out  to  have  a 
majority  of  the  votes,  the  Senate  might  choose  a 
president  from  the  five  highest  candidates  on  the 
list.  The  candidate  having  the  next  highest  num 
ber  of  votes  might  be  declared  vice-president,  and 
preserve  the  visible  continuity  of  the  government 
in  case  of  the  death  of  the  president  during  his 
term  of  office.  By  these  changes  the  method  of 
electing  the  president,  as  finally  decided  upon,  was 
nearly  completed.  But  Mason,  Randolph,  Gerry, 
King,  and  Wilson  were  not  satisfied  with  the  pro 
vision  that  the  Senate  might  choose  the  president 
in  case  of  a  failure  of  choice  on  the  part  of  the 
electoral  college  :  they  preferred  to  give  this  power 
to  the  House  of  Representatives.  It  was  thought 
that  the  Senate  would  be  likely  to  prove  an  aristo- 


THE  FEDERAL   CONVENTION.         283 

cratio  f)ody,  somewhat  removed  from  the  people  in 
its  sympathies,  and  there  was  a  dread  of  intrust 
ing*  to  it  too  many  important  functions.  Mason 
thought  that  the  sway  of  an  aristocracy  would  be 
worse  than  an  absolute  monarchy ;  and  if  the  Sen 
ate  might  every  now  and  then  elect  the  president, 
there  would  be  a  risk  that  the  dignity  of  his  office 
might  degenerate,  until  he  should  become  a  mere 
creature  of  the  Senate.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
small  states,  in  order  to  have  an  equal  voice  with 
the  large  ones,  in  such  an  emergency  as  the  failure 
of  choice  by  the  electoral  college,  wished  to  keep 
the  eventual  choice  in  the  hands  of  the  Senate. 
Among  the  delegates  from  the  small  states,  only 
Larigdon  and  Dickinson  at  first  supported  the 
change,  and  only  New  Hampshire  voted  for  it.  At 
length  Sherman  proposed  a  compromise,  which  was 
carried.  It  was  agreed  that  the  eventual  choice 
should  be  given  to  the  House  of  Representatives, 
and  not  to  the  Senate,  but  that  in  exercising  this 
function  the  vote  in  the  House  of  Representatives 
should  be  taken  by  states.  Thus  the  humours  of 
the  delegates  from  the  small  states,  and  of  those 
who  dreaded  the  accumulation  of  powers  into  the 
hands  of  an  oligarchy,  were  alike  gratified.  This 
arrangement  was  finally  adopted  by  the  votes  of 
ten  states  against  Delaware. 

But  in  spite  of  all  the  minute  and  anxious  care 
that  was  taken  in  guarding  this  point,  the  contin 
gency  of  an  election  being  thus  thrown  into  the 
hands  of  the  national  legislature  was  not  regarded 
as  likely  often  to  occur.  In  point  of  fact,  it  has 
hitherto  happened  only  twice  in  the  century,  in  the 


284  THE  FEDERAL   CONVENTION. 

elections  of  1800  and  of  1824.  It  was  recognized 
that  the  work  would  ordinarily  be  done  through 
the  machinery  of  the  electoral  college,  and  that 
thus  the  fear  of  intrigue  between  the  president  and 
Congress,  as  it  had  originally  been  felt  by  the  con- 
vention,  might  be  set  aside.  To  make  assurance 
doubly  sure,  it  was  provided  that  "  no  person  shall 
be  appointed  an  elector  who  is  a  member  of  the 
legislature  of  the  United  States,  or  who  holds  any 
office  of  profit  or  trust  under  the  United  States." 
It  then  appeared  that  the  arguments  which  had 
been  alleged  against  the  eligibility  of  the  president 
for  a  second  term  had  lost  their  force ;  and  he  was 
accordingly  made  reeligible,  while  his  term  of  ser 
vice  was  reduced  from  seven  years  to  four. 

The  scheme  had  thus  arrived  substantially  at  its 
present  shape,  except  that  the  counting  of  the 
electoral  vote  still  remained  in  the  hands  of  the 
Senate.  On  the  6th  of  September  this  provision 
was  altered,  and  it  was  decided  that  "  the  president 
of  the  Senate  shall,  in  the  presence  of  the  Senate 
HOW  to  count  and  the  House  of  Representatives,  open 
the  votes.  an  the  certificates,  and  the  votes  shall 
then  be  counted."  The  object  of  this  provision 
was  to  take  the  office  of  counting  away  from  the 
Senate  alone,  and  give  it  to  Congress  as  a  whole  ; 
and  while  doing  so,  to  guard  against  the  failure  of 
an  election  through  the  disagreement  of  the  two 
houses.  The  method  of  counting  was  not  pre 
scribed,  for  it  was  thought  that  it  might  safely  be 
left  to  joint  rules  established  by  the  two  houses  of 
Congress  themselves,  after  analogies  supplied  by 
the  experience  of  the  several  state  legislatures. 


THE  FEDERAL   CONVENTION.         285 

The  case  of  double  returns,  sent  in  by  rival  gov 
ernments  in  the  same  state,  was  not  contemplated 
by  the  convention  ;  and  thus  the  door  was  left  open 
for  a  danger  considerably  greater  than  many  of 
those  over  which  the  delegates  were  agitated.  It 
may  safely  be  said,  however,  that  not  even  the 
wildest  license  of  interpretation  can  find  any  sup 
port  for  the  ridiculous  doctrine  suggested  by  some 
persons  blinded  by  political  passion  in.  1877,  that 
the  business  of  counting  the  votes  and  deciding 
upon  the  validity  of  returns  belongs  to  the  presi 
dent  of  the  Senate.  No  such  idea  was  for  a  mo 
ment  entertained  by  the  convention.  Any  such 
idea  is  completely  negatived  by  their  action  of  the 
6th  of  September.  The  express  purpose  of  the 
final  arrangement  made  on  that  day  was  to  admit 
the  House  of  Representatives  to  active  participation 
in  the  office  of  determining  who  should  have  been 
elected  president.  It  was  expressly  declared  that 
this  work  was  too  important  to  be  left  to  the  Sen 
ate  alone.  What,  then,  would  the  convention  have 
said  to  the  preposterous  notion  that  this  work 
might  safely  be  left  to  the  presiding  officer  of  the 
Senate  ?  The  convention  were  keenly  alive  to  any 
imaginable  grant  of  authority  that  might  enable 
the  Senate  to  grow  into  an  oligarchy.  What  would 
they  have  said  to  the  proposal  to  create  a  monocrat 
ad  hoc,  an  official  permanently  endowed  by  virtue 
of  his  office  with  the  function  of  king-maker  ? 

In  this  connection  it  is  worth  our  while  to  ob 
serve  that  in  nd  respect  has  the  actual  working  oi: 
the  Constitution  departed  so  far  from  the  inten 
tions  of  its  framers  as  in  the  case  of  their  provi* 


286  THE  FEDERAL   CONVENTION. 

sions  concerning  the  executive.     Against  a  host  of 
possible  dangers  they  guarded  most  elab- 

Theconven- 

tion  foresaw     orately,  but  the  dangers  and  mconven- 

imaginary  dan-     .  .  .      ° 

gers,  but  not     lences  against  which  we  have  actually 

the  real  ones.  J 

had  to  contend  they  did  not  foresee. 
It  will  be  observed  that  Wilson's  proposal  for  a  di 
rect  election  of  the  president  by  the  people  found 
little  favour  in  the  convention.  The  schemes  that 
were  seriously  considered  oscillated  back  and  forth 
between  an  election  by  the  national  legislature  and 
an  election  by  a  special  college  of  electors.  The 
electors  might  be  chosen  by  a  popular  vote,  or  by 
the  state  legislatures,  or  in  any  such  wise  as  each 
state  might  see  fit  to  determine  for  itself.  In 
point  of  fact,  electors  were  chosen  by  the  legisla 
ture  in  New  Jersey  till  1816 ;  in  Connecticut  till 
1820 ;  in  New  York,  Delaware,  and  Vermont,  and 
with  one  exception  in  Georgia,  till  1824  ;  in  South 
Carolina  till  1868.  Massachusetts  adopted  vari' 
ous  plans,  and  did  not  finally  settle  down  to  an 
election  by  the  people  until  1828.  Now  there 
were  several  reasons  why  the  Federal  Convention 
was  afraid  to  trust  the  choice  of  the  president  di 
rectly  to  the  people.  One  was  that  very  old  objec 
tion,  the  fear  of  the  machinations  of  demagogues, 
since  people  were  supposed  to  be  so  easily  fooled. 
As  already  observed,  the  democratic  sentiment  in 
the  convention  was  such  as  we  should  now  call 
weak.  Another  reason  shows  vividly  how  wide  the 
world  seemed  in  those  days  of  slow  coaches  and 
mail-bags  carried  on  horseback.  It  was  feared 
that  people  would  not  have  sufficient  data  where- 
vrith  to  judge  of  the  merits  of  public  men  in  states 


THE  FEDERAL   CONVENTION.         287 

remote  from  their  own.  The  electors,  as  eminent 
men  exceptionally  well  informed,  and  screened 
from  the  sophisms  of  demagogues,  might  hold  little 
conventions  and  select  the  best  possible  candidates, 
using  in  every  case  their  own  unfettered  judgment. 
In  this  connection  the  words  of  Hamilton  are 
worth  quoting.  In  the  sixty-eighth  number  of  the 
"  Federalist "  he  says :  "  The  mode  of  appointment 
of  the  chief  magistrate  of  the  United  States  is  al 
most  the  only  part  of  the  system  which  has  escaped 
without  severe  censure,  or  which  has  received  the 
slightest  mark  of  approbation  from  its  opponents. 
The  most  plausible  of  these  who  has  appeared  in 
print  has  even  deigned  to  admit  that  the  election 
of  the  president  is  well  guarded.  ...  It  was  de 
sirable  that  the  sense  of  the  people  should  operate 
in  the  choice  of  the  person  to  whom  so  important 
a  trust  was  to  be  confided.  ...  It  was  equally 
desirable  that  the  immediate  election  should  be 
made  by  men  capable  of  analyzing  the  qualities 
adapted  to  the  station,  and  acting  under  circum 
stances  favourable  to  deliberation  and  to  a  judi 
cious  combination  of  all  the  reasons  and  induce 
ments  that  were  proper  to  govern  their  choice.  A 
small  number  of  persons,  selected  by  their  fellow- 
citizens  from  the  general  mass,  will  be  most  likely 
to  possess  the  information  and  discernment  requi 
site  to  so  complicated  an  investigation.  ...  It 
was  also  peculiarly  desirable  to  afford  as  little  op 
portunity  as  possible  to  tumult  and  disorder.  This 
evil  was  not  least  to  be  dreaded  in  the  election  of 
a  magistrate  who  was  to  have  so  important  an 
agency  in  the  administration  of  the  government." 


THE  FEDERAL   CONVENTION. 

Such  was  the  theory  as  set  forth  by  a  thinkef 
endowed  with  rare  ability  to  follow  out  in  imagina 
tion  the  results  of  any  course  of  political  action. 
It  is  needless  to  say  that  the  actual  working  of  the 
scheme  has  been  very  different  from  what  was  ex 
pected.  In  our  very  first  great  struggle  of  parties, 
Actual  work-  *n  1800,  the  electors  divided  upon  party 

Sfctora1!6  lilieS'    Witl1    little    keed    t0    tlie    "C0mp!i- 

scheme.  cated  investigation  "  for  which  they  were 

supposed  to  be  chosen.  Quite  naturally,  for  the 
work  of  electing  a  candidate  presupposes  a  state  of 
mind  very  different  from  that  of  serene  delibera 
tion.  In  1800  the  electors  acted  simply  as  autom 
ata  recording  the  victory  of  their  party,  and  so  it 
has  been  ever  since.  In  our  own  time  presidents 
and  vice-presidents  are  nominated,  not  without 
elaborate  intrigue,  by  special  conventions  quite 
unknown  to  the  Constitution ;  the  people  cast  their 
votes  for  the  two  or  three  pairs  of  candidates  thus 
presented,  and  the  electoral  college  simply  registers 
the  results.  The  system  is  thus  fully  exposed  to 
all  the  dangers  which  our  forefathers  dreaded  from 
the  frequent  election  of  a  chief  magistrate  by  the 
people.  Owing  to  the  great  good-sense  and  good 
nature  of  the  American  people,  the  system  does 
not  work  so  badly  as  might  be  expected.  It  has, 
indeed,  worked  immeasurably  better  than  any  one 
would  have  ventured  to  predict.  It  is  nevertheless 
open  to  grave  objections.  It  compels  a  change 
of  administration  at  stated  astronomical  periods, 
whether  any  change  of  policy  is  called  for  or  not; 
it  stirs  up  the  whole  country  every  fourth  year  with 
a  furious  excitement  that  is  often  largely  factitious; 


THE  FEDERAL   CONVENTION.         289 

and  twice  within  the  century,  in  1801  and  again  in 
1877,  it  has  brought  us  to  the  verge  of  the  most 
foolish  and  hopeless  species  of  civil  war,  in  view 
jf  that  thoroughly  monarchical  kind  of  accident,  a 
disputed  succession.1 

The  most  curious  and  instructive  point  concern 
ing  the  peculiar  executive  devised  for  the  United 
States  by  the  Federal  Convention  is  the  fact  that 
the  delegates  proceeded  upon  a  thoroughly  false 
theory  of  what  they  were  doing.  As  already  ob 
served,  in  this  part  of  its  discussions  the  convention 
had  not  the  clearly  outlined  chart  of  local  interests 
to  steer  by.  It  indulged  in  general  speculations 
and  looked  about  for  precedents ;  and  there  was 
one  precedent  which  American  statesmen  then 
always  had  before  their  eyes,  whether  they  were 
distinctly  aware  of  it  or  not.  In  creating  an  exec 
utive  department,  the  members  of  the  convention 
were  really  trying  to  copy  the  only  constitution  of 
which  they  had  any  direct  experience,  The  convention 
and  which  most  of  them  agreed  in  think- 
ing  the  most  efficient  working  constitu- 
tion  in  existence,  —  as  indeed  it  was.  tion> 
They  were  trying  to  copy  the  British  Constitution, 
modifying  it  to  suit  their  republican  ideas :  but 
curiously  enough,  what  they  copied  in  creating  the 
office  of  president  was  not  the  real  English  exec 
utive  or  prime  minister,  but  the  fictitious  English 
executive,  the  sovereign.  And  this  was  associated 

1  Since  this  was  written,  this  last  and  most  serious  danger 
would  seem  to  have  been  removed  by  the  acts  of  1886  and  1887 
regulating  the  presidential  succession  and  the  counting  of  eleo* 
toral  votes. 


290  THE  FEDERAL   CONVENTION. 

in  their  minds  with  another  profound  misconcep 
tion,  which  influenced  all  this  part  of  their  work. 
They  thought  that  to  keep  the  legislative  and  exec 
utive  offices  distinct  and  separate  was  the  very  pal 
ladium  of  liberty ;  and  they  all  took  it  for  granted, 
without  a  moment's  question,  that  the  British  Con 
stitution  did  this  thing.  England,  they  thought, 
is  governed  by  King,  Lords,  and  Commons,  and 
the  supreme  power  is  nicely  divided  between  the 
three,  so  that  neither  one  can  get  the  whole  of  it, 
and  that  is  the  safeguard  of  English  liberty.  So 
they  arranged  President,  Senate,  and  Representa 
tives  to  correspond,  and  sedulously  sought  to  divide 
supreme  power  between  the  three,  so  that  they 
might  operate  as  checks  upon  each  other.  If  either 
one  should  ever  succeed  in  acquiring  the  whole 
sovereignty,  then  they  thought  there  would  be  an 
end  of  American  liberty. 

Now  in  the  earlier  part  of  the  work  of  the  Fed 
eral  Convention,  in  dealing  with  the  legislative 
department,  the  delegates  were  on  firm  ground, 
because  they  were  dealing  with  things  of  which 
they  knew  something  by  experience ;  but  in  all 
this  careful  separation  of  the  executive  power  from 
the  legislative  they  went  wide  of  the  mark,  because 
they  were  following  a  theory  which  did  not  truly 
describe  things  as  they  really  existed.  And  that 
was  because  the  English  Constitution  was,  and  still 
is,  covered  up  with  a  thick  husk  of  legal  fictions 
which  long  ago  ceased  to  have  any  vitality.  Black- 
stone,  the  great  authority  of  the  eighteenth  cen 
tury,  set  forth  this  theory  of  the  division  of  power 
between  King,  Lords,  and  Commons  with  clear- 


THE  FEDERAL   CONVENTION.         291 

ness  and  force,  and  nobody  then  understood  Eng 
lish  history  minutely  or  thoroughly  enough  to  see 
its  fallaciousness.  Montesquieu  also,  the  ablest 
and  most  elegant  political  writer  of  the  Influence  of 
age,  with  whose  works  most  of  the  states-  J^ngS!fu 
men  in  the  Federal  Convention  were  Btone> 
familiar,  gave  a  similar  description  of  the  English 
Constitution,  and  generalized  from  it  as  the  ideal 
constitution  for  a  free  people.  But  Montesquieu 
and  Blackstone,  in  their  treatment  of  this  point, 
had  their  eyes  upon  the  legal  fictions,  and  were 
blind  to  the  real  machinery  which  was  working 
under  them.  They  gave  elegant  expression  to  what 
the  late  Mr.  Bagehot  called  the  "  literary  theory  " 
of  the  English  Constitution.  But  the  real  thing 
differed  essentially  from  the  "  literary  theory " 
even  in  their  day.  In  our  own  time  the  divergence 
has  become  so  conspicuous  that  it  would  not  now 
be  possible  for  well-informed  writers  to  make  the 
mistake  of  Montesquieu  and  Blackstone.  In  our 
time  it  has  come  to  be  perfectly  obvious  that  so 
far  from  the  English  Constitution  separating  the 
executive  power  from  the  legislative,  this  is  pre 
cisely  what  it  does  not  do.  In  Great  Britain  the 
supreme  power  is  all  lodged  in  a  single  body,  the 
House  of  Commons.  The  sovereign  has  come  to 
be  purely  a  legal  fiction,  and  the  House  of  Lords 
maintains  itself  only  by  submitting  to  the  Com 
mons.  The  House  of  Commons  is  absolutely 
supreme,  and,  as  we  shall  presently  see,  it  really 
both  appoints  and  dismisses  the  executive.  The 
English  executive,  or  chief  magistrate,  is  ordinarily 
the  first  lord  of  the  treasury,  and  is  commonly 


292  THE  FEDERAL   CONVENTION. 

styled  the  prime  minister.  He  is  chairman  of  the 
most  important  committee  of  the  House  of  Com 
mons,  and  his  cabinet  consists  of  the  chairmen  of 
other  committees. 

To  make  this  perfectly  clear,  let  us  see  what  our 
machinery  of  government  would  be,  if  it  were 
really  like  the  English.  The  presence  or  absence 
of  the  crowned  head  makes  no  essential  difference  ; 
it  is  only  a  kind  of  ornamental  cupola.  Suppose 
for  a  moment  the  presidency  abolished,  or  reduced 
what  our  gov.  to  the  political  nullity  of  the  crown  in 
England ;  and  postpone  for  a  moment 
the  consideration  of  the  Senate.  Sup 
pose  that  in  our  House  of  Representa 
tives  the  committee  of  ways  and  means  had  two 
chairmen,  —  an  upper  chairman  who  looks  after 
all  sorts  of  business,  and  a  lower  chairman  who  at 
tends  especially  to  the  finances.  This  upper  chair 
man,  we  will  say,  corresponds  to  the  first  lord  of 
the  treasury,  while  the  lower  one  corresponds  to 
the  chancellor  of  the  exchequer.  Sometimes,  when 
the  upper  chairman  is  a  great  financier,  and  capa 
ble  of  enormous  labour,  he  will  fill  both  places  at 
once,  as  Mr.  Gladstone  was  lately  first  lord  of  the 
treasury  and  chancellor  of  the  exchequer.  The 
chairmen  of  the  other  committees  on  foreign,  mili 
tary,  and  naval  affairs  will  answer  to  the  English 
secretaries  of  state  for  foreign  affairs  and  for  war, 
the  first  lord  of  the  admiralty,  and  so  on.  This 
group  of  chairmen,  headed  by  the  upper  chairman 
of  the  ways  and  means,  will  then  answer  to  the 
English  cabinet,  with  its  prime  minister.  To 
complete  the  parallel,  let  us  suppose  that,  after 


THE  FEDERAL   CONVENTION.         293 

a  new  House  of  Representatives  is  elected,  it 
chooses  this  prime  minister,  and  he  appoints  the 
Dther  chairmen  who  are  to  make  up  his  cabinet. 
Suppose,  too,  that  he  initiates  all  legislation,  and 
executes  all  laws,  and  stays  in  office  three  weeks 
or  thirty  years,  or  as  long  as  he  can  get  a  major 
ity  of  the  house  to  vote  for  his  measures.  If  he 
loses  his  majority,  he  can  either  resign  or  dis 
solve  the  house,  and  order  a  new  election,  thus 
appealing  directly  to  the  people.  If  the  new 
house  gives  him  a  majority,  he  stays  in  office ;  if 
it  shows  a  majority  against  him,  he  steps  down 
into  the  house,  and  becomes,  perhaps,  the  leader 
of  the  opposition. 

Now  if  this  were  the  form  of  our  government,  it 
would  correspond  in  all  essential  features  to  that 
of  England.  The  likeness  is  liable  to  be  obscured 
by  the  fact  that  in  England  it  is  the  queen  who  is 
supposed  to  appoint  the  prime  minister ;  but  that 
is  simply  a  part  of  the  antiquated  "literary  the 
ory  "  of  the  English  Constitution.  In  reality  the 
queen  only  acts  as  mistress  of  the  ceremonies. 
Whatever  she  may  wish,  the  prime  minister  must 
be  the  man  who  can  command  the  best  working 
majority  in  the  house.  This  is  not  only  tested  by 
the  first  vote  that  is  taken,  but  it  is  almost  invari* 
ably  known  beforehand  so  well  that  if  the  queen 
offers  the  place  to  the  wrong  man  he  refuses  to 
take  it.  Should  he  be  so  foolish  as  to  take  it,  he 
is  sure  to  be  overthrown  at  the  first  test  vote,  and 
then  the  right  man  comes  in.  Thus  in  1880  the 
queen's  manifest  preference  for  Lord  Granville  or 
L*ord  Hartington  made  no  sort  of  difference.  Mr, 


294  THE  FEDERAL   CONVENTION. 

Gladstone  was  as  much  chosen  by  the  House  of 
Commons  as  if  the  members  had  sat  in  their  seats 
and  balloted  for  him.  If  the  crown  were  to  be 
abolished  to-morrow,  and  the  house  were  hence 
forth,  on  the  resignation  of  a  prime  minister,  to 
elect  a  new  one  to  serve  as  long  as  he  could  com 
mand  a  majority,  it  would  not  be  doing  essentially 
otherwise  than  it  does  now.  The  house  then  dis 
misses  its  minister  when  it  rejects  one  of  his  im 
portant  measures.  But  while  thus  appointed  and 
dismissed  by  the  house,  he  is  in  no  wise  its  slave  ; 
for  by  the  power  of  dissolution  he  has  the  right  to 
appeal  to  the  country,  and  let  the  general  election 
decide  the  issue.  The  obvious  advantages  of  this 
system  are  that  it  makes  anything  like  a  deadlock 
between  the  legislature  and  the  executive  impossi 
ble  ;  and  it  insures  a  concentration  of  responsibil 
ity.  The  prime  minister's  bills  cannot  be  disre 
garded,  like  the  president's  messages;  and  thus, 
too,  the  house  is  kept  in  hand,  and  cannot  degen 
erate  into  a  debating  club.1 

A  system  so  delicate  and  subtle,  yet  so  strong 
and  efficient,  as  this  could  no  more  have  been  in 
vented  by  the  wisest  of  statesmen  than  a  chemist 
could  make  albumen  by  taking  its  elements  and 
mixing  them  together.  In  its  practical  working  it 
is  a  much  simpler  system  than  ours,  and  still  its 
principal  features  are  not  such  as  would  be  likely 
to  occur  to  men  who  had  not  had  some  actual  ex- 

1  The  history  of  President  Cleveland's  tariff  message  of  1887, 
however,  shows  that,  where  a  wise  and  courageous  president  calla 
attention  to  a  living  issue,  his  party,  alike  in  Congress  and  in  the 
country,  is  in  a  measure  compelled  to  follow  his  lead. 


THE  FEDERAL   CONVENTION.         295 

perience  of  them.     It  is  the  peculiar  outgrowth  of 
English  history.     As  we  can  now  see,  its 

,  .    „     ,  .,...,  ,.  In  the  British 

chief  characteristic  is  its  not  separating  government, 
the  executive  power  from  the  legislative,  departments 
As  a  member  of  Parliament,  the  prime  SonTSeiegia. 
minister  introduces  the  legislation  which 
he  is  himself  expected  to  carry  into  effect.  Nor 
does  the  English  system  even  keep  the  judiciary 
entirely  separate,  for  the  lord  chancellor  not  only 
presides  over  the  House  of  Lords,  but  sits  in  the 
cabinet  as  the  prime  minister's  legal  adviser.  It 
is  somewhat  as  if  the  chief  justice  of  the  United 
States  were  ex  officio  president  of  the  Senate  and 
attorney-general ;  though  here  the  resemblance  is 
somewhat  superficial.  Our  Senate,  although  it 
does  not  represent  landed  aristocracy  or  the  church, 
but  the  federal  character  of  our  government,  has 
still  a  superficial  resemblance  to  the  House  of 
Lords.  It  passes  on  all  bills  that  come  up  from 
the  lower  house,  and  can  originate  bills  on  most 
matters,  but  not  for  raising  revenue.  Its  func 
tion  as  a  high  court  of  impeachment,  with  the  chief 
justice  for  its  presiding  officer,  was  directly  copied 
from  the  House  of  Lords.  But  here  the  resem 
blance  ends.  The  House  of  Lords  has  no  such 
veto  upon  the  House  of  Commons  as  our  Senate 
has  upon  the  House  of  Representatives.  Between 
our  upper  and  lower  houses  a  serious  deadlock  is 
possible ;  but  the  House  of  Lords  can  only  reject 
a  bill  until  it  sees  that  the  House  of  Commons  is 
determined  to  have  it  carried.  It  can  only  enter 
a  protest.  If  it  is  obstinate  and  tries  to  do  more, 
the  House  of  Commons,  through  its  prime  minis* 


296  THE  FEDERAL   CONVENTION". 

ter,  can  create  enough  new  peers  to  change  the 
vote,  —  a  power  so  formidable  in  its  effects  upon 
Jie  social  position  of  the  peerage  that  it  does  not 
Aeed  to  be  used.  The  knowledge  that  it  exists  is 
enough  to  bring  the  House  of  Lords  to  terms. 

These  features  of  the  English  Constitution  are 
so  prominent  since  the  reform  of  Parliament  in 
1832  as  to  be  generally  recognized.  They  have 
been  gradually  becoming  its  essential  features  ever 
circumstances  since  the  Revolution  of  1688.  Before 
SSed  th"etrue  that  time  the  crown  had  really  been  the 
S^  century  executive,  and  there  had  really  been  a 
separation  between  the  executive  and 
legislative  branches  of  the  government,  which  on 
several  occasions,  and  notably  in  the  middle  of  the 
seventeenth  century,  had  led  to  armed  strife. 
What  the  Revolution  of  1688  really  decided  was 
that  henceforth  in  England  the  executive  was  to  be 
the  mighty  arm  of  the  legislature,  and  not  a  sepa 
rate  and  rival  power.  It  ended  whatever  of  real 
ity  there  was  in  the  old  system  of  King,  Lords, 
and  Commons,  and  by  the  time  of  Sir  Robert  Wai- 
pole  the  system  of  cabinet  government  had  become 
fairly  established ;  but  men  still  continued  to  use 
the  phrases  and  formulas  bequeathed  from  former 
ages,  so  that  the  meaning  of  the  changes  going  on 
under  their  very  eyes  was  obscured.  There  was 
also  a  great  historical  incident,  after  Walpole's 
time,  which  served  further  to  obscure  the  meaning 
of  these  changes,  especially  to  Americans.  From 
1760  to  1784,  by  means  of  the  rotten  borough  sys 
tem  of  elections  and  the  peculiar  attitude  of  politi 
cal  parties,  the  king  contrived  to  make  his  will  felt 


THE  FEDERAL   CONVENTION.         297 

in  the  House  of  Commons  to  such  an  extent  thafr 
it  became  possible  to  speak  of  the  personal  govern 
ment  of  George  III.  The  work  of  the  Revolution 
of  1688  was  not  really  completed  till  the  election 
of  1784  which  made  Pitt  the  ruler  of  England,  and 
its  fruits  cannot  be  said  to  have  been  fully  secured 
till  1832.  Now  as  our  Revolutionary  War  was 
brought  on  by  the  attempts  of  George  III.  to  es 
tablish  his  personal  government,  and  as  it  was  ac 
tually  he  rather  than  Lord  North  who  ruled  Eng 
land  during  that  war,  it  was  not  strange  that 
Americans,  even  of  the  highest  education,  should 
have  failed  to  discover  the  transformation  which 
the  past  century  had  wrought  in  the  framework  of 
the  English  government.  Nay,  more,  during  this 
century  the  king  had  seemed  even  more  of  a  real 
institution  to  the  Americans  than  to  the  Brit 
ish.  He  had  seemed  to  them  the  only  link  which 
bound  the  different  parts  of  the  empire  together. 
Throughout  the  struggles  which  culminated  in  the 
War  of  Independence,  it  had  been  the  favourite 
American  theory  that  while  the  colonial  assemblies 
and  the  British  Parliament  were  sovereign  each  in 
its  own  sphere,  all  alike  owed  allegiance  to  the 
king  as  visible  head  of  the  empire.  To  people  who 
had  been  in  the  habit  of  setting  forth  and  defend 
ing  such  a  theory,  it  was  impossible  that  the  crown 
should  seem  so  much  a  legal  fiction  as  it  had  really 
come  to  be  in  England.  It  is  very  instructive  to 
note  that  while  the  members  of  the  Federal  Conven 
tion  thoroughly  understood  the  antiquated  theory 
of  the  English  Constitution  as  set  forth  by  Black- 
stone,  they  drew  very  few  illustrations  from  the 


298  THE  FEDERAL   CONVENTION. 

modern  working  of  Parliament,  with  which  they 
had  not  had  sufficient  opportunities  of  becoming 
familiar.  In  particular  they  seemed  quite  uncon 
scious  of  the  vast  significance  of  a  dissolution  of 
Parliament,  although  a  dissolution  had  occurred 
only  three  years  before  under  such  circumstances 
as  to  work  a  revolution  in  British  politics  without 
a  breath  of  disturbance.  The  only  sort  of  dissolu 
tion  with  which  they  were  familiar  was  that  in 
which  Dun  more  or  Bernard  used  to  send  the  colo 
nial  assemblies  home  about  their  business  when 
ever  they  grew  too  refractory.  Had  the  signifi 
cance  of  a  dissolution,  in  the  British  sense,  been 
understood  by  the  convention,  the  pregnant  sug 
gestion  of  Roger  Sherman,  above  mentioned,  could 
not  have  failed  to  give  a  different  turn  to  the  whole 
series  of  debates  011  the  executive  branch  of  the 
government.  Had  our  Constitution  been  framed  a 
few  years  later,  this  point  would  have  had  a  better 
chance  of  being  understood.  As  it  was,  in  trying 
to  modify  the  English  system  so  as  to  adapt  it  to 
our  own  uses,  it  was  the  archaic  monarchical  fea 
ture,  and  not  the  modern  ministerial  feature,  upon 
which  we  seized.  The  president,  in  our  system, 
irremovable  by  the  national  legislature,  does  not 
answer  to  the  modern  prime  minister,  but  to  the 
old-fashioned  king,  with  powers  for  mischief  cur 
tailed  by  election  for  short  terms. 

The  close  parallelism  between  the  office  of  presi 
dent  and  that  of  king  in  the  minds  of  the  framers 
of  the  Constitution  was  instructively  shown  in  the 
debates  on  the  advisableness  of  restraining  the 
president's  action  by  a  privy  council.  Gerry  and 


THE  FEDERAL   CONVENTION.         299 

Sherman  urged  that  there  was  need  of  such  a  coun 
cil,  in  order  to  keep  watch  over  the  presi-  Thg  Amencan 
dent.  It  was  suggested  that  the  privy  cabinet  is  anal. 

*          •»      ogous  not  to 

council  should  consist  of  "the  president 
of  the  Senate,  the  speaker  of  the  House 
of  Representatives,  the  chief  justice  of 
the  supreme  court,  and  the  principal  officer  in  each 
of  five  departments  as  they  shall  from  time  to  time 
be  established  ;  their  duty  shall  be  to  advise  him  in 
matters  which  he  shall  lay  before  them,  but  their 
advice  shall  not  conclude  him,  or  affect  his  respon 
sibility."  The  plan  for  such  a  council  found  favour 
with  Franklin,  Madison,  Wilson,  Dickinson,  and 
Mason,  but  did  not  satisfy  the  convention.  When 
it  was  voted  down  Mason  used  strong  language. 
44  In  rejecting  a  council  to  the  president,"  said  he, 
44  we  are  about  to  try  an  experiment  on  which  the 
mest  despotic  government  has  never  ventured  ;  the 
Grand  Seignior  himself  has  his  Divan."  It  was 
this  failure  to  provide  a  council  which  led  the  con 
vention  to  give  to  the  Senate  a  share  in  some  of  the 
executive  functions  of  the  president,  such  as  the 
making  of  treaties,  the  appointment  of  ambassa 
dors,  consuls,  judges  of  the  supreme  court,  and  other 
officers  of  the  United  States  whose  appointment 
was  not  otherwise  provided  for.  As  it  was  objected 
to  the  office  of  vice-president  that  he  seemed  to  have 
nothing  provided  for  him  to  do,  he  was  disposed  of 
by  making  him  president  of  the  Senate.  No  cabi 
net  was  created  by  the  Constitution,  but  since  then 
the  heads  of  various  executive  departments,  ap 
pointed  by  the  president,  have  come  to  constitute 
what  is  called  his  cabinet.  Since,  however,  the 


300  THE  FEDERAL   CONVENTION. 

members  of  it  do  not  belong  to  Congress,  and  can 
neither  initiate  nor  guide  legislation,  they  really 
constitute  a  privy  council  rather  than  a  cabinet  in 
the  modern  sense,  thus  furnishing  another  illustra 
tion  of  the  analogy  between  the  president  and  the 
archaic  sovereign. 

Concerning  the  structure  of  the  federal  judiciary 
little  need  be  said  here.  It  was  framed  with  very 
The  federal  little  disagreement  among  the  delegates. 
The  work  was  chiefly  done  in  committee 
by  Ellsworth,  Wilson,  Randolph,  and  Rutledge, 
and  the  result  did  not  differ  essentially  from  the 
scheme  laid  down  in  the  Virginia  plan.  It  was 
indeed  the  indispensable  completion  of  the  work 
which  was  begun  by  the  creation  of  a  national 
House  of  Representatives.  To  make  a  federal 
government  immediately  operative  upon  individual 
citizens,  it  must  of  course  be  armed  with  federal 
courts  to  try  and  federal  officers  to  execute  judg 
ment  in  all  cases  in  which  individual  citizens  were 
amenable  to  the  national  law.  But  for  this  system 
of  United  States  courts  extended  throughout  the 
states  and  supreme  within  its  own  sphere,  the  fed 
eral  constitution  could  never  have  been  put  into 
practical  working  order.  In  another  respect  the 
federal  judiciary  was  the  most  remarkable  and 
original  of  all  the  creations  of  that  wonderful  con 
vention.  It  was  charged  with  the  duty  of  inter 
preting,  in  accordance  with  the  general  principles 
of  common  law,  the  Federal  Constitution  itself. 
This  is  the  most  noble  as  it  is  the  most  distinctive 
feature  in  the  government  of  the  United  States. 
It  constitutes  a  difference  between  the  American 


THE   FEDERAL   CONVENTION.         301 

and  British  systems  more  fundamental  than  the 
separation  of  the  executive  from  the  legislative  de 
partment.  In  Great  Britain  the  unwritten  consti 
tution  is  administered  by  the  omnipotent  House  of 
Commons  ;  whatever  statute  is  enacted  by  Parlia 
ment  must  stand  until  some  future  Parliament  may 
see  fit  to  repeal  it.  But  an  act  passed  by  both 
houses  of  Congress,  and  signed  by  the  president, 
may  still  be  set  aside  as  unconstitutional  by  the  su 
preme  court  of  the  United  States  in  its  judgments 
upon  individual  cases  brought  before  it.  It  was 
thus  that  the  practical  working  of  our  Federal  Con 
stitution  during  the  first  thirty  years  of  the  nine 
teenth  century  was  swayed  to  so  great  an  extent 
by  the  profound  and  luminous  decisions  of  Chief 
Justice  Marshall,  that  he  must  be  assigned  a  fore 
most  place  among  the  founders  of  our  Federal 
Union.  This  intrusting  to  the  judiciary  the  whole 
interpretation  of  the  fundamental  instrument  of 
government  is  the  most  peculiarly  American  feature 
of  the  work  done  by  the  convention,  and  to  the 
stability  of  such  a  federation  as  ours,  covering  as 
it  does  the  greater  part  of  a  huge  continent,  it  was 
absolutely  indispensable. 

Thus,  at  length,  was  realized  the  sublime  concep~ 
tion  of  a  nation  in  which  every  citizen  lives  under 
two  complete  and  well-rounded  systems  of  laws,  — 
the  state  law  and  the  federal  law,  —  each  with  its 
legislature,  its  executive,  and  its  judiciary  moving 
one  within  the  other,  noiselessly  and  without  fric 
tion.  It  was  one  of  the  longest  reaches  of  construc 
tive  statesmanship  ever  known  in  the  world.  There 
never  was  anything  quite  like  it  before,  and  in  Eu- 


302  THE  FEDERAL   CONVENTION. 

rope  it  needs  much  explanation  to-day  even  for 
educated  statesmen  who  have  never  seen  its  work 
ings.  Yet  to  Americans  it  has  become  so  much  a 
matter  of  course  that  they,  too,  sometimes  need  t< 
be  told  how  much  it  signifies.  In  1787  it  was  the 
substitution  of  law  for  violence  between  states  that 
were  partly  sovereign.  In  some  future  still  grander 
convention  we  trust  the  same  thing  will  be  done 
between  states  that  have  been  wholly  sovereign, 
whereby  peace  may  gain  and  violence  be  diminished 
over  other  lands  than  this  which  has  set  the  example. 

Great  as  was  the  work  which  the  Federal  Con 
vention  had  now  accomplished,  none  of  the  members 
supposed  it  to  be  complete.  After  some  discussion, 
it  was  decided  that  Congress  might  at  any  time,  by 
a  two  thirds  vote  in  both  houses,  propose  amend 
ments  to  the  constitution,  or  on  the  application  of 
the  legislatures  of  two  thirds  of  the  states  might 
call  a  convention  for  proposing  amendments  ;  and 
such  amendments  should  become  part  of  the  consti 
tution  as  soon  as  ratified  by  three  fourths  of  the 
states,  either  through  their  legislatures  or  through 
special  conventions  summoned  for  the  purpose. 
The  design  of  this  elaborate  arrangement  was  to 
guard  against  hasty  or  ill-considered  changes  in  the 
fundamental  instrument  of  government ;  and  its 
effectiveness  has  been  such  that  an  amendment  has 
come  to  be  impossible  save  as  the  result  of  intense 
conviction  on  the  part  of  a  vast  majority  of  the 
whole  American  people. 

Finally  it  was  decided  that  the  Federal  Consti 
tution,  as  now  completed,  should  be  presented  to 
the  Continental  Congress,  and  then  referred  to 


4        THE  FEDERAL   CONVENTION.         303 

special  conventions  in  all  the  states  for  ratification; 
and  that  when  nine  states,  or  two  thirds  of  the 
whole  number,  should  have  ratified,  it  should  at 
once  go  into  operation  as  between  such  ratifying 
states. 

When  the  great  document  was  at  last  drafted 
by  Gouverneur  Morris,  and  was  all  ready  for  the 
signatures,  the  aged  Franklin  produced  a  paper, 
which  was  read  for  him,  as  his  voice  was  weak. 
Some  parts  of  this  Constitution,  he  said,  Signing  the 
he  did  not  approve,  but  he  was  aston-  c°n8titution. 
ished  to  find  it  so  nearly  perfect.  Whatever  opin 
ion  he  had  of  its  errors  he  would  sacrifice  to  the 
public  good,  and  he  hoped  that  every  member  of  the 
convention  who  still  had  objections  would  on  this 
occasion  doubt  a  little  of  his  own  infallibility,  and 
for  the  sake  of  unanimity  put  his  name  to  this  in 
strument.  Hamilton  added  his  plea.  A  few  mem 
bers,  he  said,  by  refusing  to  sign,  might  do  infinite 
mischief.  No  man's  ideas  could  be  more  remote 
from  the  plan  than  his  were  known  to  be ;  but  was 
it  possible  for  a  true  patriot  to  deliberate  between 
anarchy  and  convulsion,  on  the  one  side,  and  the 
chance  of  good  to  be  expected  from  this  plan,  on 
the  other  ?  From  these  appeals,  as  well  as  from 
Washington's  solemn  warning  at  the  outset,  we  see 
how  distinctly  it  was  realized  that  the  country  was 
on  the  verge  of  civil  war.  Most  of  the  members 
felt  so,  but  to  some  the  new  government  seemed 
far  too  strong,  and  there  were  three  who  dreaded 
despotism  even  more  than  anarchy.  Mason,  Ran 
dolph,  and  Gerry  refused  to  sign,  though  Randolph 
sought  to  qualify  his  refusal  by  explaining  that  he 


804  THE  FEDERAL   CONVENTION. 

could  not  yet  make  up  his  mind  whether  to  oppose 
or  defend  the  Constitution,  when  it  should  be  laid 
before  the  people  of  Virginia.  He  wished  to  re 
serve  to  himself  full  liberty  of  action  in  the  matter. 
That  Mason  and  Gerry,  valuable  as  their  services 
had  been  in  the  making  of  the  Constitution,  would 
now  go  home  and  vigorously  oppose  it,  there  was 
no  doubt.  Of  the  delegates  who  were  present  on 
the  last  day  of  the  convention,  all  but  these  three 
signed  the  Constitution.  In  the  signatures  the 
twelve  states  which  had  taken  part  in  the  work 
were  all  represented,  Hamilton  signing  alone  for 
New  York. 

Thus  after  four  months  of  anxious  toil,  through 
the  whole  of  a  scorching  Philadelphia  summer, 
after  earnest  but  sometimes  bitter  discussion,  in 
which  more  than  once  the  meeting  had  seemed  on 
the  point  of  breaking  up,  a  colossal  work  had  at 
last  been  accomplished,  the  results  of  which  were 
most  powerfully  to  affect  the  whole  future  career 
of  the  human  race  so  long  as  it  shall  dwell  upon 
the  earth.  In  spite  of  the  high-wrought  intensity 
of  feeling  which  had  been  now  and  then  displayed, 
grave  decorum  had  ruled  the  proceedings ;  and 
now,  though  few  were  really  satisfied,  the  approach 
to  unanimity  was  remarkable.  When  all  was  over, 
it  is  said  that  many  of  the  members  seemed  awe 
struck.  Washington  sat  with  head  bowed  in  sol 
emn  meditation.  The  scene  was  ended  by  a  char 
acteristic  bit  of  homely  pleasantry  from  Franklin. 
Thirty-three  years  ago,  in  the  days  of  George  II., 
before  the  first  mutterings  of  the  Revolution  had 
been  heard,  and  when  the  French  dominion  in 


THE  FEDERAL   CONVENTION.          305 

America  was  still  untouched,  before  the  banish, 
ment  of  the  Acadians  or  the  rout  of  Braddock, 
while  Washington  was  still  surveying  lands  in  the 
wilderness,  while  Madison  was  playing  in  the 
nursery  and  Hamilton  was  not  yet  born,  Franklin 
had  endeavoured  to  bring  together  the  thirteen 
colonies  in  a  federal  union.  Of  the  famous  Al 
bany  plan  of  1754,  the  first  complete  outline  of  a 
federal  constitution  for  America  that  ever  was 
made,  he  was  the  principal  if  not  the  sole  author. 
When  he  signed  his  name  to  the  Declaration  of 
Independence  in  this  very  room,  his  years  had 
rounded  the  full  period  of  threescore  and  ten. 
Eleven  years  more  had  passed,  and  he  had  been 
spared  to  see  the  noble  aim  of  his  life  accom 
plished.  There  was  still,  no  doubt,  a  chance  of 
failure,  but  hope  now  reigned  in  the  old  man's 
breast.  On  the  back  of  the  president's  quaint 
black  armchair  there  was  emblazoned  a  half-sun, 
brilliant  with  its  gilded  rays.  As  the  meeting 
was  breaking  up  and  Washington  arose,  Franklin 
pointed  to  the  chair,  and  made  it  the  text  for 
prophecy.  "  As  I  have  been  sitting  here  all  these 
weeks,"  said  he,  "  I  have  often  wondered  whether 
yonder  sun  is  rising  or  setting.  But  now  I  know 
that  it  is  a  rising  sun  I  " 


CHAPTER  VII. 

CROWNING  THE  WORK. 

IT  was  on  the  17th  of  September,  1787,  that  the 
Federal  Convention  broke  up.  For  most  of  the 
delegates  there  was  a  long  and  tedious  journey 
home  before  they  could  meet  their  fellow-citizens 
and  explain  what  had  been  done  at  Philadelphia 
during  this  anxious  summer.  Not  so,  however, 
with  Benjamin  Franklin  and  the  Pennsylvania 
delegation.  At  eleven  o'clock  on  the  next  morn 
ing,  radiant  with  delight  at  seeing  one  of  the  most 
cherished  purposes  of  his  life  so  nearly  accom 
plished,  the  venerable  philosopher,  attended  by  his 
seven  colleagues,  presented  to  the  legislature  of 
Pennsylvania  a  copy  of  the  Federal  Constitution, 
and  in  a  brief  but  pithy  speech,  characterized  by 
his  usual  homely  wisdom,  begged  for  it  their  most 
favourable  consideration.  His  words  fell  upon 
willing  ears,  for  nowhere  was  the  disgust  at  the 
prevailing  anarchy  greater  than  in  Philadelphia. 
But  still  it  was  not  quite  in  order  for  the  assembly 
to  act  upon  the  matter  until  word  should  come 
from  the  Continental  Congress.  Since  its  igno 
minious  flight  to  Princeton,  four  years  ago,  that 
migratory  body  had  not  honoured  Philadelphia  with 
its  presence.  It  had  once  flitted  as  far  south  as 
Annapolis,  but  at  length  had  chosen  for  its  abiding- 


CROWNING   THE    WORK.  307 

place  the  city  of  New  York,  where  it  was  now  in 
session.  To  Congress  the  new  Constitution  must 
be  submitted  before  it  was  in  order  for  the  several 
states  to  take  action  upon  it.  On  the  20th  of 
September  the  draft  of  the  Constitution 
was  laid  before  Congress,  accompanied 
by  a  letter  from  Washington.  The 
forces  of  the  opposition  were  promptly 


mustered.     At  their  head  was  Richard  ******  for  rati 

fication. 

Henry  Lee,  who  eleven  years  ago  had 
moved  in  Congress  the  Declaration  of  Indepen 
dence.  He  was  ably  supported  by  Nathan  Dane 
of  Massachusetts,  and  the  delegation  from  New 
York  were  unanimous  in  their  determination  to 
obstruct  any  movement  toward  a  closer  union  of 
the  states.  Their  tactics  were  vigorous,  but  the 
majority  in  Congress  were  against  them,  especially 
after  the  return  of  Madison  from  Philadelphia. 
Madison,  aided  by  Edward  Carrington  and  young 
Henry  Lee,  the  famous  leader  of  light  horse,  suc 
ceeded  in  every  division  in  carrying  the  vote  of 
Virginia  in  favour  of  the  Constitution  and  against 
the  obstructive  measures  of  the  elder  Lee.  The 
objection  was  first  raised  that  the  new  Constitution 
would  put  an  end  to  the  Continental  Congress,  and 
that  in  recommending  it  to  the  states  for  consid 
eration  Congress  would  be  virtually  asking  them 
to  terminate  its  own  existence.  Was  it  right  or 
proper  for  Congress  thus  to  have  a  hand  in  signing 
its  own  death-warrant  ?  But  this  flimsy  argument 
was  quickly  overturned.  Seven  months  before 
Congress  had  recognized  the  necessity  for  calling 
the  convention  together;  whatever  need  for  its 


308  CROWNING   THE   WORK. 

work  existed  then,  there  was  the  same  need  now; 
and  by  refusing  to  take  due  cognizance  of  it  Con 
gress  would  simply  stultify  itself.  The  opposition 
then  tried  to  clog  the  measure  by  proposing  amend 
ments,  but  they  were  outgeneralled,  and  after  eight 
days'  discussion  it  was  voted  that  the  new  Consti 
tution,  together  with  Washington's  letter,  "be 
transmitted  to  the  several  legislatures,  in  order  to 
be  submitted  to  a  convention  of  delegates  in  each 
state  by  the  people  thereof,  in  conformity  to  the 
resolves  of  the  convention." 

The  submission  of  the  Constitution  to  the  people 
of  the  states  was  the  signal  for  the  first  formation 
of  political  parties  on  a  truly  national  issue.  Dur 
ing  the  war  there  had  indeed  been  Whigs  and 
Tories,  but  their  strife  had  not  been  like  the  ordi 
nary  strife  of  political  parties ;  it  was  actual  war 
fare.  Irredeemably  discredited  from  the  outset, 
the  Tories  had  been  overridden  and  outlawed  from 
one  end  of  the  Union  to  the  other.  They  had 
never  been  able  to  hold  up  their  heads  as  a  party 
in  opposition.  Since  the  close  of  the  war  there 
had  been  local  parties  in  the  various  states,  divided 
on  issues  of  hard  and  soft  money,  or  the  impost, 
or  state  rights,  and  these  issues  had  coincided  in 
many  of  the  states.  During  the  autumn  of  1787 
all  these  elements  were  segregated  into  two  great 
political  parties,  whose  character  and 

First  Amer-  .  <•»    «         -,       i  «i      -i  i         i« 

jean  parties,      views  are  sufficiently  described  bv  their 

Federalists  J 

and  Antifed-    names.     Those  who  supported  the  new 

eralists.  ri 

Constitution  were  henceforth  known  as 
Federalists ;  those  who  were  opposed  to  strength 
ening  the  bond  between  the  states  were  called 


CROWNING   THE    WORK.  309 

Antifederalists.  It  was  fit  that  their  name  should 
have  this  merely  negative  significance,  for  their 
policy  at  this  time  was  purely  a  policy  of  negation 
and  obstruction.  Care  must  be  taken  not  to  con 
found  them  with  the  Democratic-Republicans,  or 
strict  constructionists,  who  appear  in  opposition  to 
the  Federalists  soon  after  the  adoption  of  the  Con 
stitution.  The  earlier  short-lived  party  furnished 
a  great  part  of  its  material  to  the  later  one,  but 
the  attitude  of  the  strict  constructionists  under  the 
Constitution  was  very  different  from  that  of  the 
Antifederalists.  Madison,  the  second  Republican 
president,  was  now  the  most  energetic  of  Feder 
alists  ;  and  Jefferson,  soon  to  become  the  founder 
of  the  Democratic-Republican  party,  wrote  from 
Paris,  saying,  "  The  Constitution  is  a  good  canvas, 
on  which  some  strokes  only  want  retouching." 
He  found  the  same  fault  with  it  that  was  found 
by  many  of  the  ablest  and  most  patriotic  men  in 
the  country,  —  that  it  failed  to  include  a  bill  of 
rights;  but  at  the  same  time  he  declared  that 
while  he  was  not  of  the  party  of  Federalists,  he 
was  much  further  from  that  of  the  Antifederalists. 
The  Federal  Convention  he  characterized  as  u  an 
assembly  of  demi-gods." 

The  first  contest  over  the  new  Constitution  came 
in  Pennsylvania.  The  Federalists  in  that  state 
were  numerous,  but  their  opponents  had  one  point 
in  their  favour  which  they  did  not  fail  to  make  the 
most  of.  The  constitution  of  Pennsylvania  was 
peculiar.  Its  legislature  Consisted  of  The^t^t}, 
a  single  house,  and  its  president  was  Pennsylvania, 
chosen  by  that  house.  "  Therefore,  said  the  Anti- 


310  CROWNING   THE   WORK. 

federalists,  if  we  approve  of  a  federal  constitution 
which  provides  for  a  legislature  of  two  houses  and 
chooses  a  president  by  the  device  of  an  electoral 
college,  we  virtually  condemn  the  state  constitution 
under  which  we  live.  This  cry  was  raised  with  no 
little  effect.  But  some  of  the  strongest  immediate 
causes  of  opposition  to  the  new  Constitution  were 
wanting  in  Pennsylvania.  The  friends  of  paper 
money  were  few  there,  and  the  objections  to  the 
control  of  the  central  government  over  commerce 
were  weaker  than  in  many  of  the  other  states. 
The  Antifederalists  were  strongest  in  the  moun 
tain  districts  west  of  the  Susquehanna,  where  the 
somewhat  lawless  population  looked  askance  at 
any  plan  that  savoured  of  a  stronger  government 
and  a  more  regular  collection  of  revenue.  In 
the  eastern  counties,  and  especially  in  Philadel 
phia,  the  Federalists  could  count  upon  a  heavy 
majority. 

The  contest  began  in  the  legislature  on  the  28th 
of  September,  the  very  day  on  which  Congress  de 
cided  to  submit  the  Constitution  to  the  states,  and 
before  the  news  of  the  action  had  reached  Phila 
delphia.  The  zeal  of  the  Federalists  was  so  in 
tense  that  they  could  wait  no  longer,  and  they 
hurried  the  event  with  a  high-handed  vigour  that 
was  not  altogether  seemly.  The  assembly  was  on 
the  eve  of  breaking  up,  and  a  new  election  was  to 
be  held  on  the  first  Tuesday  t>f  November.  The 
Antifederalists  hoped  to  make  a  stirring  campaign, 
and  secure  such  a  majority  in  the  new  legislature 
as  to  prevent  the  Constitution  from  being  laid  be 
fore  the  people.  But  their  game  was  frustrated 


CROWNING   THE   WORK.  311 

by  George  Clymer,  who  had  sat  in  the  Federal 
Convention,   and   now  most   unexpectedly  moved 
that  a  state  convention  be  called  to  consider  the 
proposed   form   of   government.      Great   was   the 
wrath  of  the   Antifederalists.     Mr.    Clymer   was 
quite  out  of  order,  they  said.     Congress  had  not 
yet  sent  them  the  Constitution ;  and  besides,  no 
such  motion  could  be  made  without  notice  given 
beforehand,  nor  could  it  be  voted  on  till  it  had 
passed  three  readings.     Parliamentary  usage  was 
doubtless  on  the  side  of  the  Antifederalists,  but  the 
majority  were  clamorous,  and  overwhelmed  them 
with  cries  of  "Question,  question !  "    The  question 
was  then  put,  and  carried  by  43  votes  against  19, 
and  the  house  adjourned  till  four  o'clock.    Before 
going  to  their  dinners  the  19  held  an  indignation 
meeting,  at  which  it  was  decided  that  they  would 
foil  these  outrageous  proceedings  by  staying  away. 
It  took  47  to  make  a  quorum,  and  without  these 
malcontents  the  assembly  numbered  but  45.  When 
the  house  was  called  to  order  after  dinner,  it  was 
found  there  were  but  45  members  present.     The 
sergeant-at-arms  was   sent  to  summon   the  delin 
quents,  but  they  defied  him,  and  so  it  became  nec 
essary  to  adjourn  till  next  morning.     It  was  now 
the  turn  of  the  Federalists  to  uncork  the  vials  of 
wrath.     The  affair  was  discussed  in  the  How  to  make 
taverns  till  after  midnight,  the  19  were  a(iuorum- 
abused  without   stint,  and   soon    after   breakfast, 
.  next  morning,  two  of  them  were  visited  by  a  crowd 
of  men,  who  broke  into  their  lodgings  and  dragged 
them  off  to  the  state  house,  where  they  were  for 
cibly  held  down  in  their  seats,  growling  and  mut- 


812  CROWNING   THE   WORK. 

tering  curses.  This  made  a  quorum,  and  a  state 
convention  was  immediately  appointed  for  the  20th 
of  November.  Before  these  proceedings  were  con 
cluded,  an  express-rider  brought  the  news  from 
New  York  that  Congress  had  submitted  the  Con 
stitution  to  the  judgment  of  the  states. 

And  now  there  ensued  such  a  war  of  pamphlets, 
broadsides,  caricatures,  squibs,  and  stump-speeches, 
as  had  never  yet  been  seen  in  America.  Cato  and 
Aristides,  Cincinnatus  and  Plain  Truth,  were  out 
in  full  force.  What  was  the  matter  with  the  old 
confederation  ?  asked  the  Antifederalists.  Had  it 
not  conducted  a  glorious  and  triumphant  war? 
Had  it  not  set  us  free  from  the  oppression  of  Eng 
land?  That  there  was  some  trouble  now  in  the 
country  could  not  be  denied,  but  all  would  be  right 
if  people  would  only  curb  their  extravagance,  wear 
homespun  clothes,  and  obey  the  laws.  There  was 
government  enough  in  the  country  already.  This 
Philadelphia  convention  ought  to  be  distrusted. 
Some  of  its  members,  such  as  John  Dickinson  and 
Robert  Morris,  had  opposed  the  Declaration  of  In 
dependence.  Pretty  men  these,  to  be  offering  us 
a  new  government !  You  might  be  sure  there  was 
a  British  cloven  foot  in  it  somewhere.  Their  con 
vention  had  sat  four  months  with  closed  doors,  as 
if  they  were  afraid  to  let  people  know  what  they 
were  about.  Nobody  could  tell  what  secret  con 
spiracies  against  American  liberty  might  not  have 
been  hatched  in  all  that  time.  One  thing  was 
sure:  the  convention  had  squabbled.  Some  mem 
bers  had  gone  home  in  a  huff ;  others  had  refused 
to  sign  a  document  fraught  with  untold  evils  to  the 


CROWNING   THE   WORK.  313 

country.  And  now  came  James  Wilson,  making 
speeches  in  behalf  of  this  precious  Constitution, 
and  trying  to  pull  the  wool  over  people's  eyes  and 
persuade  them  to  adopt  it.  Who  was  James  Wil 
son,  any  way?  A  Scotchman,  a  countryman  of 
Lord  Bute,  a  born  aristocrat,  a  snob,  a  patrician. 
Jimmy,  James  de  Caledonia.  Beware  of  any  form 
of  government  defended  by  such  a  man.  And  as 
to  the  other  members  of  the  convention,  there  was 
Roger  Sherman,  who  had  signed  the  articles  of 
confederation,  and  was  now  trying  to  undo  his 
own  work.  What  confidence  could  be  placed  in  a 
man  who  did  not  know  his  own  mind  any  better 
than  that?  Then  there  were  Hamilton  and  Madi 
son,  mere  boys;  and  Franklin,  an  old  dotard,  a 
man  in  his  second  childhood.  And  as  to  Washing 
ton,  he  was  doubtless  a  good  soldier,  but  what  did 
he  know  about  politics  ?  So  said  the  more  mod 
erate  of  the  malcontents,  hesitating  for  the  moment 
to  speak  disrespectfully  of  such  a  man ;  but  pres 
ently  their  zeal  got  the  better  of  them,  and  in  a 
paper  signed  "  Centinel "  it  was  boldly  declared 
that  Washington  was  a  born  fool ! 

From  the  style  and  temper  of  these  arguments 
one  clearly  sees  that  the  Antifederalists  in  Pennsyl 
vania  felt  from  the  beginning  that  the  day  was 
going  against  them.  Sixteen  of  the  men  who  had 
seceded  from  the  assembly,  headed  by  Robert 
Whitehill  of  Carlisle,  issued  a  manifesto  setting 
forth  the  ill-treatment  they  had  received,  and  sound 
ing  an  alarm  against  the  dangers  of  tyranny  to  which 
the  new  Constitution  was  already  exposing  them. 
They  were  assisted  by  Richard  Henry  Lee,  who 


814  CROWNING  THE   WORK. 

published  a  series  of  papers  entitled  "  Letters  from 
the  Federal  Farmer,"  and  scattered  thousands  of 
copies  through  the  state  of  Pennsylvania.  He  did 
not  deny  that  the  government  needed  reforming, 
but  in  the  proposed  plan  he  saw  the  seeds  of  aris 
tocracy  and  of  centralization.  The  chief  objections 
to  the  Constitution  were  that  it  created  a  national 
legislature  in  which  the  vote  was  to  be  by  individ 
uals,  and  not  by  states ;  that  it  granted  to  this 
body  an  unlimited  power  of  taxation ;  that  it  gave 
too  much  power  to  the  federal  judiciary ;  that  it 
provided  for  paying  the  salaries  of  members  of 
Congress  out  of  the  federal  treasury,  and  would 
thus  make  them  independent  of  their  own  states; 
that  it  required  an  oath  of  allegiance  to  the  federal 
government ;  and  finally,  that  it  did  not  include  a 
bill  of  rights.  These  objections  were  very  elabo 
rately  set  forth  by  the  leading  Antifederalists  in 
the  state  convention;  but  the  logic  and  eloquence 
of  James  Wilson  bore  down  all  opposition.  The 
Antifederalists  resorted  to  filibustering.  Five  days, 
it  is  said,  were  used  up  in  settling  the  meanings  of 
the  two  words  "  annihilation"  and  "  consolidation." 
In  this  way  the  convention  was  kept  sitting  for 
nearly  three  weeks,  when  news  came  from  "the 
Delaware  state,"  as  it  used  then  to  be  called  in 
Pennsylvania.  The  concession  of  an  equal  repre 
sentation  in  the  federal  Senate  had  re. 

Delaware  rati- 

Bteitut!onC(Dec  moved  *ne  onty  ground  of  opposition 
Pemfs7ivania  in  Delaware,  and  the  Federalists  had 
jeTs'ey2  ktecew  everything  their  own  way  there.  In  -a 
18-  convention  assembled  at  Dover,  on  the 

6th  of  December,  the  Constitution  was  ratified  with- 


CROWNING   THE    WORK.  315 

out  a  single  dissenting  voice.  Thus  did  this  little 
state  lead  the  way  in  the  good  work.  The  news 
was  received  with  exultation  by  the  Federalists  at 
Philadelphia,  and  on  the  12th  Pennsylvania  rati 
fied  the  Constitution  by  a  two^thirds  vote  of  46  to 
23.  The  next  day  all  business  was  quite  at  a 
standstill,  while  the  town  gave  itself  up  to  proces 
sions  and  merry-making.  The  convention  of  New 
Jersey  had  assembled  at  Trenton  on  the  llth,  and 
one  week  later,  on  the  18th,  it  ratified  the  Consti 
tution  unanimously. 

A  most  auspicious  beginning  had  thus  been 
made.  Three  states,  one  third  of  the  whole  number 
required,  had  ratified  almost  at  the  same  moment. 
Two  of  these,  moreover,  were  small  states,  which 
at  the  beginning  of  the  Federal  Convention  had 
been  obstinately  opposed  to  any  fundamental  change 
in  the  government.  It  was  just  here  that  the  Fed 
eralists  were  now  strongest.  The  Connecticut  com 
promise  had  wrought  with  telling  effect,  not  only 
in  the  convention,  but  upon  the  people  of  the  states. 
When  the  news  from  Trenton  was  received  in 
Pennsylvania,  there  was  great  rejoicing  in  the  east 
ern  counties,  while  beyond  the  Susquehanna  there 
were  threats  of  armed  rebellion.  On  the  day  after 
Christmas,  as  the  Federalists  of  Carlisle  were  about 
to  light  a  bonfire  on  the  common  and  fire  a  salute, 
they  were  driven  off  the  field  by  a  mob  armed  with 
bludgeons,  their  rickety  old  cannon  was  spiked, 
and  an  almanac  for  the  new  year,  containing  a 
copy  of  the  Constitution,  was  duly  cursed,  and  then 
burned.  Next  day  the  Federalists,  armed  with 
muskets,  came  back,  and  went  through  their  cere- 


316  CROWNING  THE   WORK. 

monies.  Their  opponents  did  not  venture  to  molest 
them ;  but  after  they  had  dispersed,  an  Antifed- 
eralist  demonstration  was  made,  and  effigies  of 
James  Wilson  and  Thomas  MeKean,  another  prom 
inent  Federalist,  were  dragged  to  the  common, 
and  there  burned  at  the  stake. 

The  action  of  Delaware  and  New  Jersey  had 
shown  that  the  Antifederalists  could  not  build  any 
hopes  upon  the  antagonism  between  large  and  small 
states.  It  was  thought,  however,  that  the  southern 
states  would  unite  in  opposing  the  Constitution 
from  their  dread  of  becoming  commercially  sub 
jected  to  New  England.  But  the  compromise  on 
the  slave-trade  had  broken  through  this  opposition. 
On  the  2d  of  January,  1788,  the  Constitution  was 
ratified  in  Georgia  without  a  word  of  dissent.  One 
week  later  Connecticut  ratified  by  a  vote  of  128  to 
40,  after  a  session  of  only  five  days. 
fies,  Jan.  2,  The  hopes  of  the  Antifedcralists  now 

1788;  Con-  TI/T 

necticut,  Jan.    rested  upon   Massachusetts,  where  the 

9.     The  out-  *          .  111  1/^1 

look  in  Massa-  state  convention  assembled  on  the  9th 

chusetts.  i«ii 

of  January,  the  same  day  on  which  that 
of  Connecticut  broke  up.  Should  Massachusetts 
refuse  to  ratify,  there  would  be  no  hope  for  the 
Constitution.  Even  should  nine  states  adopt  it 
without  her,  no  one  supposed  a  Federal  Union 
feasible  from  which  so  great  a  state  should  be 
excluded.  Her  action,  too,  would  have  a  marked 
effect  upon  other  states.  It  could  not  be  denied 
that  the  outlook  in  Massachusetts  was  far  from 
encouraging.  The  embers  of  the  Shays  rebellion 
still  smouldered  there,  and  in  the  mountain  coun 
ties  of  Worcester  and  Berkshire  were  heard  loud 


CROWNING   THE    WORK.  317 

murmurs  of  discontent.  Laws  impairing  the  ob 
ligation  of  contracts  were  just  what  these  hard- 
pressed  farmers  desired,  and  by  the  proposed  Con 
stitution  all  such  laws  were  forever  prohibited. 
The  people  of  the  district  of  Maine,  which  had 
formed  part  of  Massachusetts  for  nearly  a  century, 
were  anxious  to  set  up  an  independent  government 
for  themselves ;  and  they  feared  that  if  they  were 
to  enter  into  the  new  and  closer  Federal  Union 
as  part  of  that  state,  they  might  hereafter  find  it 
impossible  to  detach  themselves.  For  this  reason 
half  of  the  Maine  delegates  were  opposed  to  the 
Constitution.  In  none  of  the  thirteen  states,  more 
over,  was  there  a  more  intense  devotion  to  state 
rights  than  in  Massachusetts.  Nowhere  had  local 
self-government  reached  a  higher  degree  of  effi 
ciency  ;  nowhere  had  the  town  meeting  flourished 
with  such  vigour.  It  was  especially  characteristic 
of  men  trained  in  the  town  meeting  to  look  with 
suspicion  upon  all  delegated  power,  upon  all  author 
ity  that  was  to  be  exercised  from  a  distance.  They 
believed  it  to  be  all  important  that  people  should 
manage  their  own  affairs,  instead  of  having  them 
managed  by  other  people ;  and  so  far  had  this 
principle  been  carried  that  the  towns  of  Massachu 
setts  were  like  little  semi-independent  republics, 
and  the  state  was  like  a  league  of  such  republics, 
whose  representatives,  sitting  in  the  state  legisla 
ture,  were  like  delegates  strictly  bound  by  instruc 
tions  rather  than  untrammelled  members  of  a  delib 
erative  body.  To  men  trained  in  such  a  school,  it 
would  naturally  seem  that  the  new  Constitution 
delegated  altogether  too  much  power  to  a  govern- 


4818  CROWNING   THE   WORK. 

ing  body  which  must  necessarily  be  remote  from 
most  of  its  constituents.  It  was  feared  that  some 
sort  of  tyranny  might  grow  out  of  this,  and  such 
fears  were  entertained  by  men  who  were  not  in  the 
slightest  degree  infected  with  Shaysism,  as  the  polit 
ical  disease  of  the  inland  counties  was  then  called. 
Such  fears  were  entertained  by  one  of  the  greatest 
citizens  that  Massachusetts  has  ever  produced,  the 
man  who  has  been  well  described  as  preeminently 
"  the  man  of  the  town  meeting,"  -  —  Samuel  Adams. 
The  limitations  of  this  great  man,  as  well  as  his 
powers,  were  those  which  belonged  to  him  as  chief 
among  the  men  of  English  race  who  have  swayed 
society  through  the  medium  of  the  ancient  folk 
mote.  At  this  time  he  was  believed  by  many  to  be 
hostile  to  the  new  Constitution,  and  his  influence  in 
Massachusetts  was  still  greater  than  that  of  any 
other  man.  Besides  this,  it  was  thought  that  the 
governor,  John  Hancock,  was  half-hearted  in  his 
support  of  the  Constitution,  and  it  was  in  every 
body's  mouth  that  Elbridge  Gerry  had  refused  to 
set  his  name  to  that  document  because  he  felt  sure 
it  would  create  a  tyranny. 

Such  symptoms  encouraged  the  Antifederalists 
in  the  hope  that  Massachusetts  would  reject  the 
Constitution  and  ruin  the  plans  of  the  "  visionary 
young  men  "  —  as  Richard  Henry  Lee  called  them 
—  who  had  swayed  the  Federal  Convention.  But 
there  were  strong  forces  at  work  in  the  opposite 
direction.  In  Boston  and  all  the  large  coast  towns, 
even  those  of  the  Maine  district,  the  dominant  feel 
ing  was  Federalist.  All  well-to-do  people  had  been 
alarmed  by  the  Shays  insurrection,  and  merchants, 


CROWNING   THE   WORK.  319 

shipwrights,  and  artisans  of  every  sort  were  con 
vinced  that  there  was  no  prosperity  in  store  for 
them  until  the  federal  government  should  have 
Control  over  commerce,  and  be  enabled  to  make  its 
strength  felt  on  the  seas  and  in  Europe.  In  these 
views  Samuel  Adams  shared  so  thoroughly  that  his 
attitude  toward  the  Constitution  at  this  moment 
was  really  that  of  a  waverer  rather  than  an  oppo 
nent.  Amid  balancing  considerations  he  found  it 
for  some  time  hard  to  make  up  his  mind. 

In  the  convention  which  met  on  the  9th  of  Jan 
uary  there  sat  Gorham,  Strong,  and  King,  who 
had  taken  part  in  the  Federal  Convention.  There 
were  also  Samuel  Adams  and  James  Bowdoin ;  the 
revolutionary  generals,  Heath  and  Lincoln ;  and 
the  rising  statesmen,  Sedgwick,  Parsons,  and  Fisher 
Ames,  whose  eloquence  was  soon  to  become  so 
famous.  There  were  twenty-four  clergymen,  of 
various  denominations,  —  men  of  sound  scholar 
ship,  and  several  of  them  eminent  for  worldly  wis 
dom  and  liberality  of  temper.  Governor  Hancock 
presided,  gorgeous  in  crimson  velvet  and  finest 
laces,  while  about  the  room  sat  many  browned  and 
weatherbeaten  farmers,  among  whom  were  at  least 
eighteen  who  hardly  a  year  ago  had  marched  over 
the  pine-clad  mountain  ridges  of  Petersham,  under 
the  bannar  of  the  rebel  Shays.  It  was  a  whole 
some  no  less  than  a  generous  policy  that  let  these 
men  come  in  and  freely  speak  their  minds.  The 
air  was  thus  the  sooner  cleared  of  discontent ;  the 
disease  was  thus  the  more  likely  to  heal  itself.  In 
all  there  were  three  hundred  and  fifty-five  dele 
gates  present,  —  a  much  larger  number  than  took 


320  CROWNING   THE   WORK. 

part  in  any  of  the  other  state  conventions.  The 
people  of  all  parts  of  Massachusetts  were  very 
thoroughly  represented,  as  befitted  the  state  which 
was  preeminent  in  the  active  political  life  of  its 
town  meetings,  and  the  work  done  here  was  in 
some  respects  decisive  in  its  effect  upon  the  adop 
tion  of  the  Constitution. 

The  convention  began  by  overhauling  that  docu 
ment  from  beginning  to  end,  discussing  it  clause 
by  clause  with  somewhat  wearisome  minuteness. 
Some  of  the  objections  seem  odd  to  us  at  this  time, 
with  our  larger  experience.    It  was  sev- 

Debates  in  the  *  . 

Massachusetts    eral  days  betore  the  minds  of  the  coun- 

convention.  111  -11 

try  members  could  be  reconciled  to  the 
election  of  representatives  for  so  long  a  period  as 
two  years.  They  had  not  been  wont  to  delegate 
power  to  anybody  for  so  long  a  time,  not  even  to 
their  selectmen,  whom  they  had  always  under  their 
eyes.  How  much  more  dangerous  was  it  likely  to 
prove  if  delegated  authority  were  to  be  exercised 
for  so  long  a  period  at  some  distant  federal  city, 
such  as  the  Constitution  contemplated!  There 
was  a  vague  dread  that  in  some  indescribable  way 
the  new  Congress  might  contrive  to  make  its  sit 
tings  perpetual,  and  thus  become  a  tyrannical  oli 
garchy,  which  might  tax  the  people  without  their 
consent.  And  then  as  to  this  federal  city,  there 
were  some  who  did  not  like  the  idea.  A  district 
ten  miles  square !  Was  not  that  a  great  space  to 
give  up  to  the  uncontrolled  discretion  of  the  federal 
government,  wherein  it  could  wreak  its  tyrannical 
will  without  let  or  hindrance  ?  One  of  the  dele 
gates  thought  he  could  be  reconciled  to  the  new 


CROWNING   THE    WORK.  321 

Constitution  if  this  district  could  only  be  narrowed 
down  to  one  mile  square.  And  then  there  was  the 
power  granted  to  Congress  to  maintain  a  standing 
army,  of  which  the  president  was  to  be  ex  officio 
commander-in-chief .  Did  not  this  open  the  door 
for  a  Cromwell  ?  It  was  to  be  a  standing  army 
for  at  least  two  years,  since  this  was  the  shortest 
period  between  elections.  Why,  even  the  British 
Parliament,  since  1688,  did  not  keep  up  a  stand 
ing  army  for  more  than  one  year  at  a  time,  but 
renewed  its  existence  annually  under  what  was 
termed  the  Mutiny  Act.  But  what  need  of  a 
standing  army  at  all?  Would  it  not  be  sure  to 
provoke  needless  disorders?  Had  they  already 
forgotten  the  Boston  Massacre,  in  spite  of  all  the 
orations  that  had  been  delivered  in  the  Old  South 
Meeting-House?  A  militia,  organized  under  the 
town -meeting  system,  was  surely  all-sufficient. 
Such  a  militia  had  won  glorious  triumphs  at  Lex 
ington  and  Bennington  ;  and  at  King's  Mountain, 
had  not  an  army  of  militia  surrounded  and  cap 
tured  an  army  of  regulars  led  by  one  of  England's 
most  skilful  officers?  What  more  could  you  ask? 
Clearly  this  plan  for  a  standing  army  foreboded 
tyranny.  Upon  this  point  Mr.  Nason,  from  the 
Maine  district,  had  his  say,  in  tones  of  inimitable 
bombast.  "  Had  I  the  voice  of  Jove,"  said  he,  "  I 
would  proclaim  it  throughout  the  world ;  and  had 
I  an  arm  like  Jove,  I  would  hurl  from  the  globe 
those  villains  that  would  dare  attempt  to  establish 
in  our  country  a  standing  army !  " 

Next  came  the  complaint  that  the  Constitution 
did  not  recognize  the  existence  of  God,  and  pro- 


322  CROWNING   THE   WORK. 

vided  no  religious  tests  for  candidates  for  federal 
offices.  But,  strange  to  say,  this  objection  did  not 
come  from  the  clergy.  It  was  urged  by  some  of 
the  country  members,  but  the  ministers  in  the  con 
vention  were  nearly  unanimous  in  oppos- 

Liberal  atti-        .  .,         rm  r     j    i  i      i  i 

tudeofthe  ing  it.  Ihere  had.  been  a  remarkable 
change  of  sentiment  among  the  clergy 
of  this  state,  which  had  begun  its  existence  as  a 
theocracy,  in  which  none  but  church  members  could 
vote  or  hold  office.  The  seeds  of  modern  liberal 
ism  had  been  planted  in  their  minds.  When  Amos 
Singletary  of  Button  declared  it  to  be  scandalous 
that  a  Papist  or  an  infidel  should  be  as  eligible  to 
office  as  a  Christian,  —  a  remark  which  naively  as 
sumed  that  Roman  Catholics  were  not  Christians, 
—  the  Rev.  Daniel  Shute  of  Hingham  replied 
that  no  conceivable  advantage  could  result  from  a 
religious  test.  Yes,  said  the  Rev.  Philip  Payson 
of  Chelsea,  "  human  tribunals  for  the  consciences 
of  men  are  impious  encroachments  upon  the  pre 
rogatives  of  God.  A  religious  test,  as  a  qualifica 
tion  for  office,  would  have  been  a  great  blemish." 
"  In  reason  and  in  the  Holy  Scripture,"  said  the 
Rev.  Isaac  Backus  of  Middleborough,  "  religion  is 
ever  a  matter  between  God  and  the  individual ;  the 
imposing  of  religious  tests  hath  been  the  greatest 
engine  of  tyranny  in  the  world."  With  this  lib 
eral  stand  firmly  taken  by  the  ministers,  the  re 
ligious  objection  was  speedily  overruled. 

Then  the  clause  which  allows  Congress  to  regu 
late  the  times,  places,  and  manner  of  holding  fed 
eral  elections  was  severely  criticised.  It  was  feared 
that  Congress  would  take  advantage  of  this  pro- 


CROWNING   THE   WORK.  323 

rision  to  destroy  the  freedom  of  elections.  It  was 
further  objected  that  members  of  Congress,  being 
paid  their  salaries  from  the  federal  treasury,  would 
become  too  independent  of  their  constituents.  Fed 
eral  collectors  of  revenue,  moreover,  would  not  be 
so  likely  to  act  with  moderation  and  justice  as  col 
lectors  appointed  by  the  state.  Then  it  was  very 
doubtful  whether  the  people  could  support  the  ex 
pense  of  an  elaborate  federal  government.  They 
were  already  scarcely  able  to  pay  their  town,  county, 
and  state  taxes ;  was  it  to  be  supposed  they  could 
bear  the  additional  burden  with  which  federal  tax 
ation  would  load  them  ?  Then  the  compromise  on 
the  slave-trade  was  fiercely  attacked.  They  did 
not  wish  to  have  a  hand  in  licensing  this  nefarious 
traffic  for  twenty  years.  But  it  was  urged,  on  the 
other  hand,  that  by  prohibiting  the  foreign  slave- 
trade  after  1808  the  Constitution  was  really  deal 
ing  a  death-blow  to  slavery ;  and  this  opinion  pre 
vailed. 

During  the  whole  course  of  the  discussion,  ob« 
served  the  Rev.  Samuel  West  of  New  Bedford,  it 
seemed  to  be  taken  for  granted  that  the  federal 
government  was  going  to  be  put  into  the  hands  of 
crafty  knaves.  "  I  wish,"  said  he,  "  that  the  gen 
tlemen  who  have  started  so  many  possible  objec 
tions  would  try  to  show  us  that  what  they  so  much 
deprecate  is  probable.  .  .  .  Because  power  may  be 
abused,  shall  we  be  reduced  to  anarchy?  What 
hinders  our  state  legislatures  from  abusing  their 
powers  ?  .  .  .  May  we  not  rationally  suppose  that 
the  persons  we  shall  choose  to  administer  the  gov 
ernment  will  be,  in  general,  good  men  ?  "  General 


324  CROWNING   THE    WORK. 

Thompson  said  he  was  surprised  to  hear  such  an 
argument  from  a  clergyman,  who  was  profession 
ally  bound  to  maintain  that  all  men  were  totally 
depraved.  For  his  part  he  believed  they  were  so, 
and  he  could  prove  it  from  the  Old  Testament. 
"I  would  not  trust  them,"  echoed  Abraham  White 
of  Bristol,  "  though  every  one  of  them  should  be  a 
Moses." 

The  feeling  of  distrust  was  strongest  among  the 
farmers  from  the  mountain  districts.  As  Rufus 
King  said,  they  objected,  not  so  much  to  the  Con 
stitution  as  to  the  men  who  made  it  and  the  men 
who  sang  its  praises.  They  hated  lawyers,  and 
were  jealous  of  wealthy  merchants.  "  These  law 
yers,"  said  Amos  Singletary,  "and  men  of  learn 
ing,  and  moneyed  men  that  talk  so  finely  and  gloss 
over  matters  so  smoothly,  to  make  us  poor  illiterate 
people  swallow  the  pill,  expect  to  get  into  Congress 
themselves.  They  mean  to  be  managers  of  the 
Constitution.  They  mean  to  get  all  the  money 
into  their  hands,  and  then  they  will  swallow  up  us 
little  folk,  like  the  great  Leviathan,  Mr.  President ; 
yes,  just  as  the  whale  swallowed  up  Jonah."  Here 
a  more  liberal-minded  farmer,  Jonathan  Smith  of 
Lanesborough,  rose  to  reply  with  references  to  the 
Shays  rebellion,  which  presently  called  forth  cries 
of  "  Order ! "  from  some  of  the  members.  Samuel 
Adams  said  the  gentleman  was  quite  in  order,  — 
let  him  go  on  in  his  own  way.  "  I  am  a  plain 

man,"  said  Mr.  Smith,  "  and    am    not 
Berkshire*       used  to  speak  in  public,  but  I  am  going 

to   show   the    effects   of   anarchy,    that 
you  may  see   why  I  wish  for  good  government. 


CROWNING   THE   WORK.  325 

Last  winter  people  took  up  arms,  and  then,  if  you 
went  to  speak  to  them,  you  had  the  musket  of  death 
presented  to  your  breast.  They  would  rob  you  of 
your  property,  threaten  to  burn  your  houses,  oblige 
you  to  be  on  your  guard  night  and  day.  Alarms 
spread  from  town  to  town,  families  were  broken 
up ;  the  tender  mother  would  cry,  4  Oh,  my  son  is 
among  them !  What  shall  I  do  for  my  child  ?  ' 
Some  were  taken  captive;  children  taken  out  of 
their  schools  and  carried  away.  .  .  .  How  dread 
ful  was  this !  Our  distress  was  so  great  that  we 
should  have  been  glad  to  snatch  at  anything  that 
looked  like  a  government.  .  .  .  Now,  Mr.  Presi 
dent,  when  I  saw  this  Constitution,  I  found  that  it 
was  a  cure  for  these  disorders.  I  got  a  copy  of  it, 
and  read  it  over  and  over.  ...  I  did  not  go  to 
any  lawyer,  to  ask  his  opinion ;  we  have  no  lawyer 
in  our  town,  and  we  do  well  enough  without.  My 
honourable  old  daddy  there  [pointing  to  Mr.  Single- 
tary]  won't  think  that  I  expect  to  be  a  Congress 
man,  and  swallow  up  the  liberties  of  the  people.  I 
never  had  any  post,  nor  do  I  want  one.  But  I 
don't  think  the  worse  of  the  Constitution  because 
lawyers,  and  men  of  learning,  and  moneyed  men 
are  fond  of  it.  I  am  not  of  such  a  jealous  make. 
They  that  are  honest  men  themselves  are  not  apt 
to  suspect  other  people.  .  .  .  Brother  farmers,  let 
us  suppose  a  case,  now.  Suppose  you  had  a  farm 
of  50  acres,  and  your  title  was  disputed,  and  there 
was  a  farm  of  5,000  acres  joined  to  you  that  be« 
longed  to  a  man  of  learning,  and  his  title  was  in 
volved  in  the  same  difficulty :  would  you  not  be 
glad  to  have  him  for  your  friend,  rather  than  to 


326  CROWNING   THE   WORK. 

stand  alone  in  the  dispute  ?  Well,  the  case  is  the 
same.  These  lawyers,  these  moneyed  men,  these 
men  of  learning,  are  all  embarked  in  the  same 
cause  with  us,  and  we  must  all  sink  or  swim  to 
gether.  Shall  we  throw  the  Constitution  over 
board  because  it  does  not  please  us  all  alike? 
Suppose  two  or  three  of  you  had  been  at  the  pains 
to  break  up  a  piece  of  rough  land  and  sow  it  with 
wheat:  would  you  let  it  lie  waste  because  you 
t;ould  not  agree  what  sort  of  a  fence  to  make  ? 
Would  it  not  be  better  to  put  up  a  fence  that  did 
not  please  every  one's  fancy,  rather  than  keep  dis 
puting  about  it  until  the  wild  beasts  came  in  and 
devoured  the  crop?  Some  gentlemen  say,  Don't 
be  in  a  hurry ;  take  time  to  consider.  I  say,  There 
is  a  time  to  sow  and  a  time  to  reap.  We  sowed  our 
seed  when  we  sent  men  to  the  Federal  Convention, 
now  is  the  time  to  reap  the  fruit  of  our  labour ; 
4ind  if  we  do  not  do  it  now,  I  am  afraid  we  shall 
never  have  another  opportunity." 

It  may  be  doubted  whether  all  the  eloquence  of 
'Fisher  Ames  could  have  stated  the  case  more  for 
cibly  than  it  was  put  by  this  plain  farmer  from  the 
Berkshire  hills.  Upon  Ames,  with  King,  Parsons, 
Bowdoin,  and  Strong,  fell  the  principal  work  in 
defending  the  Constitution.  For  the  first  two 
weeks,  Samuel  Adams  scarcely  opened 

Attitude  of  J.      r 

Samuel  his  mouth,  but  listened  with  anxious  care 

Adams. 

to  everything  that  was  said  on  either 
side.  The  convention  was  so  evenly  divided  that 
there  could  be  no  doubt  that  his  single  voice  would 
decide  the  result.  Every  one  eagerly  awaited  his 
opinion.  In  the  debate  on  the  two  years'  term  of 


CROWNING    THE   WORK.  327 

members  of  Congress,  he  had  asked  Caleb  Strong 
the  reason  why  the  Federal  Convention  had  decided 
upon  so  long  a  term ;  and  when  it  was  explained 
as  a  necessary  compromise  between  the  views  of  so 
many  delegates,  he  replied,  "  I  am  satisfied."  "  Will 
Mr.  Adams  kindly  say  that  again  ?  "  asked  one  of 
the  members.  "  I  am  satisfied,"  he  repeated  ;  and 
not  another  word  was  said  on  the  subject  in  all 
those  weeks.  So  profound  was  the  faith  of  this 
intelligent  and  skeptical  and  independent  people 
in  the  sound  judgment  and  unswerving  integrity  of 
the  Father  of  the  Revolution !  As  the  weeks  went 
by,  and  the  issue  seemed  still  dubious,  the  work- 
ingmen  of  Boston,  shipwrights  and  brass-founders 
and  other  mechanics,  decided  to  express  their  opin 
ion  in  a  way  that  they  knew  Samuel  Adams  would 
heed.  They  held  a  meeting  at  the  Green  Dragon 
tavern,  passed  resolutions  in  favour  of  the  Con 
stitution,  and  appointed  a  committee,  with  Paul 
Revere  at  its  head,  to  make  known  these  resolu 
tions  to  the  great  popular  leader.  When  Adams 
had  read  the  paper,  he  asked  of  Paul  Revere, 
"  How  many  mechanics  were  at  the  Green  Dragon 
when  these  resolutions  passed?"  "More,  sir,  than 
the  Green  Dragon  could  hold."  "  And  where  were 
the  rest,  Mr.  Revere?"  "In  the  streets,  sir." 
"And  how  many  were  in  the  streets?"  "More, 
sir,  than  there  are  stars  in  the  sky." 

Between  Samuel  Adams  and  Thomas  Jefferson 
there  were  several  points  of  resemblance,  the  chief 
of  which  was  an  intense  faith  in  the  sound  com 
mon  sense  of  the  mass  of  the  people.  This  faith 
was  one  of  the  strongest  attributes  of  both  these 


828  CROWNING   THE   WORK. 

great  men.  It  has  usually  been  supposed  that  it 
was  this  incident  of  the  meeting  at  the  Green 
Dragon  that  determined  Adams's  final  attitude  in 
the  state  convention.  Unquestionably,  such  a  dem 
onstration  must  have  had  great  weight  with  him. 
But  at  the  same  time  the  affair  was  taking  such  a 
turn  as  would  have  decided  him,  even  without  the 
aid  of  this  famous  mass-meeting.  The  long  delay 
in  the  decision  of  the  Massachusetts  convention 
had  carried  the  excitement  to  fever  heat  through 
out  the  country.  Not  only  were  people  from  New 
Hampshire  and  New  York  and  naughty  Rhode 
Island  waiting  anxiously  about  Boston  to  catch 
every  crumb  of  news  they  could  get,  but  intrigues 
were  going  on,  as  far  south  as  Virginia,  to  influence 
the  result.  On  the  21st  of  January  the  "  Boston 
Gazette "  came  out  with  a  warning,  headed  by 
enormous  capitals  with  three  exclamation-points : 
"  Bribery  and  Corruption!!!  The  most  diabol 
ical  plan  is  on  foot  to  corrupt  the  members  of  the 
convention  who  oppose  the  adoption  of  the  new 
Constitution.  Large  sums  of  money  have  been 
brought  from  a  neighbouring  state  for  that  pur 
pose,  contributed  by  the  wealthy.  If  so,  is  it  not 
probable  there  may  be  collections  for  the  same 
accursed  purpose  nearer  home?"  No  adequate 
investigation  ever  determined  whether  this  charge 
was  true  or  not.  We  may  hope  that  it  was  ill- 
founded  ;  but  our  general  knowledge  of  human 
nature  must  compel  us  to  admit  that  there  was 
probably  a  grain  of  truth  in  it.  But  what  was  un 
deniable  was  that  Richard  Henry  Lee  wrote  a  let 
ter  to  Gerry,  urging  that  Massachusetts  should  not 


CROWNING   THE    WORK.  329 

adopt  the  Constitution  without  insisting  upon  sun 
dry  amendments ;  and  in  order  to  consider  these 
amendments,  it  was  suggested  that  there  should 
be  another  Federal  Convention.  At  this  anxious 
crisis,  Washington  suddenly  threw  him 
self  into  the  breach  with  that  infallible  fruitful  Bug- 

.     ,  i»   i  »          i  •    i        i  i         gestion. 

judgment  of  his  which  always  saw  the 
way  to  victory.  "  If  another  Federal  Convention 
is  attempted,"  said  Washington,  "  its  members  will 
be  more  discordant,  and  will  agree  upon  no  general 
plan.  The  Constitution  is  the  best  that  can  be 
obtained  at  this  time.  .  .  .  The  Constitution  or 
disunion  are  before  us  to  choose  from.  If  the 
Constitution  is  our  choice,  a  constitutional  door  is 
open  for  amendments,  and  they  may  be  adopted  in 
a  peaceable  manner,  without  tumult  or  disorder." 

When  this  advice  of  Washington's  reached  Bos 
ton,  it  set  in  motion  a  train  of  events  which  soon 
solved  the  difficulty,  both  for  Massachusetts  and 
for  the  other  states  which  had  not  yet  made  up 
their  mind.  Chief  among  the  objections  to  the 
Constitution  had  been  the  fact  that  it  did  not  con 
tain  a  bill  of  rights.  It  did  not  guarantee  religious 
liberty,  freedom  of  speech  and  of  the  press,  or  the 
right  of  the  people  peacefully  to  assemble  and 
petition  the  government  for  a  redress  of  grievances. 
It  did  not  provide  against  the  quartering  of  sol 
diers  upon  the  people  in  time  of  peace.  It  did  not 
provide  against  general  search-warrants,  nor  did  it 
securely  prescribe  the  methods  by  which  individ 
uals  should  be  held  to  answer  for  criminal  offences. 
It  did  not  even  provide  that  nobody  should  be 
burned  at  the  stake  or  stretched  on  the  rack,  f 01 


330  CROWNING   THE   WORK. 

holding  peculiar  opinions  about  the  nature  of  God 
or  the  origin  of  evil.  That  such  objections  to  the 
Constitution  seem  strange  to  us  to-day  is  partly 
due  to  the  determined  attitude  of  the  men  who, 
amid  all  the  troubles  of  the  time,  would  not  con 
sent  to  any  arrangement  from  which  such  safe 
guards  to  free  thinking  and  free  living  should  be 
omitted.  The  friends  of  the  Constitution  in  Bos 
ton  now  proposed  that  the  convention,  while  adopt 
ing  it,  should  suggest  sundry  amendments  contain 
ing  the  essential  provisions  of  a  bill  of  rights.  It 
was  not  intended  that  the  ratification  should  be 
conditional.  Under  the  circumstances,  a  condi 
tional  ratification  might  prove  as  disastrous  as 
rejection.  It  might  lead  to  a  second  Federal  Con 
vention,  in  which  the  good  work  already  accom 
plished  might  be  undone.  The  ratification  was  to 
be  absolute,  and  the  amendments  were  offered  in 
the  hope  that  action  would  be  taken  upon  them  as 
soon  as  the  new  government  should  go  into  opera 
tion.  There  could  be  little  doubt  that  the  sugges 
tion  would  be  heeded,  not  only  from  the  importance 
of  Massachusetts  in  the  Union,  but  also  from  the 
fact  that  Virginia  and  other  states  would  be  sure 
to  follow  her  example  in  suggesting  such  amend 
ments.  This  forecast  proved  quite  correct,  and  it 
was  in  this  way  that  the  first  ten  amendments 
originated,  which  were  acted  on  by  Congress  in 
1790,  and  became  part  of  the  Constitution  in  1791. 
As  soon  as  this  plan  had  been  matured,  Hancock 
proposed  it  to  the  convention ;  the  hearty  support 
of  Adams  was  immediately  insured,  and  within  a 
week  from  that  time,  on  the  6th  of  February,  the 


CROWNING   THE   WORK.  331 

Constitution  was  ratified  by  the  narrow  majority  of 
187  votes  against  168.  On  that  same  Massachugett, 
day  Jefferson,  in  Paris,  wrote  to  Madi-  r'^e8'ajlre(j;d. 
son :  "I  wish  with  all  my  soul  that  the  ™gts>  Feb.  6, 
nine  first  conventions  may  accept  the 
new  Constitution,  to  secure  to  us  the  good  it  con 
tains  ;  but  I  equally  wish  that  the  four  latest,  which 
ever  they  may  be,  may  refuse  to  accede  to  it  till  a 
declaration  of  rights  be  annexed ;  but  no  objection 
to  the  new  form  must  produce  a  schism  in  our 
Union."  But  as  soon  as  he  heard  of  the  action  of 
Massachusetts,  he  approved  it  as  preferable  to  his 
own  idea,  and  he  wrote  home  urging  Virginia  to 
follow  the  example. 

Massachusetts  was  thus  the  sixth  state  to  ratify 
the  Constitution.  On  that  day  the  name  of  the 
Long  Lane  by  the  meeting-house  where  the  con 
vention  had  sat  was  changed  to  Federal  Street. 
The  Boston  people,  said  Henry  Knox,  had  quite 
lost  their  senses  with  joy.  The  two  counties  of 
Worcester  and  Berkshire  had  given  but  14  yeas 
against  59  nays,  but  the  farmers  went  home  de 
claring  that  they  should  cheerfully  abide  by  the  de 
cision  of  the  majority.  Not  a  murmur  was  heard 
from  any  one. 

About  the  time  that  the  Massachusetts  conven 
tion  broke  up,  that  of  New  Hampshire  assembled 
at  Exeter ;  but  after  a  brief  discussion  it  was  de 
cided  to  adjourn  until  June,  in  order  to  see  how 
the  other  states  would  act.  On  the  21st  of  April 
the  Maryland  convention  assembled  at  Annapolis. 
All  the  winter  Patrick  Henry  had  been  busily  at 
Work,  with  the  hope  of  inducing  the  southern  states 


832  CROWNING   THE    WORK. 

to  establish  a  separate  confederacy;  but  he  had 
made  little  headway  anywhere,  and  none  at  all  in 
Maryland,  where  his  influence  was  completely  coun 
teracted  by  that  of  Washington.  Above  all  things, 
said  Washington,  do  not  let  the  convention  adjourn 
till  the  matter  is  decided,  for  the  Antifederalists 
are  taking  no  end  of  comfort  from  the  postpone 
ment  in  New  Hampshire.  Their  glee  was  short 
lived,  however.  Some  of  Maryland's  strongest 
men,  such  as  Luther  Martin  and  Samuel  Chase, 
were  Antifederalists ;  but  their  efforts  were  of  no 
Maryland  rati-  avail-  After  a  session  of  five  days  the 
fies,  April  28.  Constitution  was  ratified  by  a  vote  of  63 
to  11.  Whatever  damage  New  Hampshire  might 
have  done  was  thus  more  than  made  good.  The 
eyes  of  the  whole  country  were  now  turned  upon 
the  eighth  state,  South  Carolina.  Her  convention 
was  to  meet  at  Charleston  on  the  12th  of  May,  the 
anniversary  of  the  day  on  which  General  Lincoln 
had  surrendered  that  city  to  Sir  Henry  Clinton ; 
but  there  had  been  a  decisive  preliminary  struggle 
in  the  legislature  in  January.  The  most  active 
of  the  Antifederalists  was  Rawlins  Lowndes,  who 
had  opposed  the  Declaration  of  Independence. 
Lowndes  was  betrayed  into  silliness.  "We  are 
now,"  said  he,  "  under  a  most  excellent  constitu 
tion,  —  a  blessing  from  Heaven,  that  has  stood  the 
test  of  time  [!  !J,  and  given  us  liberty  and  inde 
pendence ;  yet  we  are  impatient  to  pull  down  that 
fabric  which  we  raised  at  the  expense  of  our  blood." 
This  was  not  very  convincing  to  the  assembly,  most 
of  the  members  knowing  full  well  that  the  fabric 
fiad  not  stood  the  test  of  time,  but  had  already 


CROWNING   THE    WORK.  333 

tumbled  in  by  reason  of  its  vicious  construction. 
A  more  effective  plea  was  that  which  referred 
to  the  slave-trade.  "  What  cause  is  there,"  said 
Lowndes,  "  for  jealousy  of  our  importing  negroes  ? 
Why  confine  us  to  twenty  years  ?  Why  limit  us 
at  all  ?  This  trade  can  be  justified  on  the  prin 
ciples  of  religion  and  humanity.  They  Debaceginthe 
do  not  like  our  having  slaves  because  ^heg^ 
they  have  none  themselves,  and  there-  ture- 
fore  want  to  exclude  us  from  this  great  advantage." 
Cotesworth  Pinckney  replied :  "  By  this  settlement 
we  have  secured  an  unlimited  importation  of  ne 
groes  for  twenty  years.  The  general  government 
can  never  emancipate  them,  for  no  such  authority 
is  granted,  and  it  is  admitted  on  all  hands  that  the 
general  government  has  no  powers  but  what  are 
expressly  granted  by  the  Constitution.  We  have 
obtained  a  ri^ht  to  recover  our  slaves  in  whatever 

O 

part  of  the  country  they  may  take  refuge,  which  is 
a  right  we  had  not  before.  In  short,  considering 
all  circumstances,  we  have  made  the  best  terms  in 
our  power  for  the  security  of  this  species  of  prop 
erty.  We  would  have  made  better  if  we  could ; 
but,  on  the  whole,  I  do  not  think  them  bad."  Per 
haps  Pinckney  would  not  have  assumed  exactly 
this  tone  at  Philadelphia,  but  at  Charleston  the 
argument  was  convincing.  Lowndes  then  sounded 
the  alarm  that  the  New  England  states  would 
monopolize  the  carrying-trade  and  charge  ruinous 
freights,  and  he  drew  a  harrowing  picture  of  ware 
houses  packed  to  bursting  with  rice  and  indigo 
spoiling  because  the  owners  could  not  afford  to  pay 
the  Yankee  skippers'  prices  for  carrying  their 


334  CROWNING   THE   WORK. 

goods  to  market.  But  Pinckney  rejoined  that  a 
Yankee  shipmaster  in  quest  of  cargoes  would  not 
be  likely  to  ruin  his  own  chances  for  getting  them, 
and  he  called  attention  to  the  great  usefulness  of 
the  eastern  merchant  marine  as  affording  material 
for  a  navy,  and  thus  contributing  to  the  defence  of 
the  country.  Finally  Lowndes  put  in  a  plea  for 
paper  money,  but  with  little  success.  The  result 
of  the  debate  set  the  matter  so  clearly  before  the 
people  that  a  great  majority  of  Federalists  were 
elected  to  the  convention.  Among  them  were 
Gadsden,  the  Rutledges  and  the  Pinckneys,  Moul- 
trie,  and  William  Washington,  who  had  become  a 
citizen  of  the  state  from  which  he  had  helped  to 
expel  the  British  invader.  The  Antifederalists 
were  largely  represented  by  men  from  the  upland 
counties,  belonging  to  a  population  in  which  there 
was  considerable  likeness  all  along  the  Appalachian 
chain  of  mountains,  from  Pennsylvania  to  the  south 
ern  extremity  of  the  range.  There  were  among 
them  many  "  moonshiners,"  as  they  were  called,  — 
distillers  of  illicit  whiskey,  —  and  they  did  not 
relish  the  idea  of  a  federal  excise.  At  their  head 
was  Thomas  Sumter,  a  convert  to  Patrick 

South  Caro-        TT  .  i          -  <•     i 

lina  ratifies,      Henry  s  scheme  for  a  southern  conf ed- 

May  23. 

eracy.  Their  policy  was  one  of  delay 
and  obstruction,  but  it  availed  them  little,  for  on 
the  23d  of  May,  after  a  session  of  eleven  days, 
South  Carolina  ratified  the  Constitution  by  a  vote 
of  149  against  73. 

The  sound  policy  of  the  Federal  Convention  in 
adopting  the  odious  compromise  over  the  slave-trade 
was  now  about  to  bear  fruit.  In  Virginia  there 


CROWNING   THE   WORK.  335 

had  grown  up  a  party  which  favoured  the  establish 
ment  of  a  separate  southern  confederacy.  By  the 
action  of  South  Carolina  all  such  schemes  were  now 
nipped  in  the  bud.  Of  the  states  south  of  Mason 
and  Dixon's  line,  three  had  now  ratified  the  Con 
stitution,  so  that  any  separate  confederacy  could 
now  consist  only  of  Virginia  and  North 

J  &  Important 

Carolina.     The   reason  for   this    short-  effect  upon 

Virginia. 

lived  separatist  feeling  in  Virginia  was 
to  be  found  in  the  complications  which  had  grown 
out  of  the  attempt  of  Spain  to  close  the  Mississippi 
River.  It  will  be  remembered  that  only  two  years 
before  Jay  had  actually  recommended  to  Con 
gress  that  the  right  to  navigate  the  lower  Mis 
sissippi  be  surrendered  for  twenty-five  years,  in 
exchange  for  a  favourable  commercial  treaty  with 
Spain.  The  New  England  states,  caring  nothing 
for  the  distant  Mississippi,  supported  this  measure 
in  Congress  ;  and  this  narrow  and  selfish  policy 
naturally  created  alarm  in  Virginia,  which,  in  her 
district  of  Kentucky,  touched  upon  the  great  river. 
Thus  to  the  vague  dread  of  the  southern  states  in 
general,  in  the  event  of  New  England's  controlling 
the  commercial  policy  of  the  government,  there  was 
added,  in  Virginia's  case,  a  specific  fear.  If  the 
New  England  people  were  thus  ready  to  barter 
away  the  vital  interests  of  a  remote  part  of  the 
country,  what  might  they  not  do  ?  Would  they 
ever  stop  at  anything  so  long  as  they  could  go  on 
building  up  their  commerce  ?  This  feeling  strongly 
influenced  Patrick  Henry  in  his  desire  for  a  sepa 
rate  confederacy  ;  and  we  have  seen  how  Randolph 
and  Mason,  in  the  Federal  Convention,  were  so 


886  CROWNING   THE   WORK. 

disturbed  at  the  power  given  to  Congress  to  regiu 
late  commerce  by  a  simple  majority  of  votes  that 
they  refused  to  set  their  names  to  the  Constitution. 
They  alleged  further  reasons  for  their  refusal,  but 
this  was  the  chief  one.  They  wanted  a  two  thirds 
vote  to  be  required,  in  order  that  the  south  might 
retain  the  means  of  protecting  itself.  Under 
these  circumstances  the  opposition  to  the  Constitu 
tion  was  very  strong,  and  but  for  the  action  of 
South  Carolina  the  party  in  favour  of  a  separate 
confederacy  might  have  been  capable  of  doing  much 
mischief.  As  it  was,  since  that  party  had  actively 
intrigued  both  in  South  Carolina  and  Maryland, 
the  ratification  of  the  Constitution  by  both  these 
states  was  a  direct  rebuff.  It  quite  demoralized 
the  advocates  of  secession.  The  paper-money  men, 
moreover,  were  handicapped  by  the  fact  that  two 
of  the  most  powerful  Antifederalists,  Mason  and 
Lee,  were  determined  opponents  of  a  paper  cur 
rency,  so  that  this  subject  had  to  be  dropped  or 
very  gingerly  dealt  with.  The  strength  of  the 
Antifederalists,  though  impaired  by  these  causes, 
was  still  very  great.  The  contest  was  waged  with 
all  the  more  intensity  of  feeling  because,  since 
eight  states  had  now  adopted  the  Constitution,  the 
verdict  of  Virginia  would  be  decisive.  The  con 
vention  met  at  Richmond  on  the  2d  of  June,  and 
Edmund  Pendleton  was  chosen  president.  Fore 
most  among  the  Antifederalists  was  Patrick  Henry, 
whose  eloquence  was  now  as  zealously 

Debates  in  the  . 

Virginia  Con-    employed   against  the  new  government 

vention.  t     ••      i   i  •       i  -i 

as  it  had  been  in  bygone  days  against 
the  usurpations  of   Great   Britain.     He  was   sup- 


CROWNING   THE    WORK.  337 

ported  by  Mason,  Lee,  and  Grayson,  as  well  as  by 
Benjamin  Harrison  and  John  Tyler,  the  fathers  of 
two  future  presidents  ;  and  he  could  count  on  the 
votes  of  most  of  the  delegates  from  the  midland 
counties,  from  the  south  bank  of  the  James  River, 
and  from  Kentucky.  But  the  united  talents  of  the 
opposition  had  no  chance  of  success  in  a  conflict 
with  the  genius  and  tact  of  Madison,  who  at  one 
moment  crushed,  at  another  conciliated,  his  oppo 
nent,  but  always  won  the  day.  To  Madison,  more 
than  any  other  man,  the  Federalist  victory  was  due. 
But  he  was  ably  seconded  by  Governor  Randolph, 
whom  he  began  by  winning  over  from  the  opposite 
party,  and  by  the  favourite  general  and  eloquent 
speaker,  "  Light-Horse  Harry."  Conspicuous  in 
the  ranks  of  Federalists,  and  unsurpassed  in  debate, 
was  a  tall  and  gaunt  young  man,  with  beaming 
countenance,  eyes  of  piercing  brilliancy,  and  an  in 
describable  kingliness  of  bearing,  who  was  by  and 
by  to  become  chief  justice  of  the  United  States,  and 
by  his  masterly  and  far-reaching  decisions  to  win 
a  place  side  by  side  with  Madison  and  Hamilton 
among  the  founders  of  our  national  government. 
John  Marshall,  second  to  none  among  all  the  illus 
trious  jurists  of  the  English  race,  was  then,  at  the 
age  of  thirty-three,  the  foremost  lawyer  in  Virginia. 
He  had  already  served  for  several  terms  in  the  state 
legislature,  but  his  national  career  began  in  this 
convention,  where  his  arguments  with 

»T.T,.  .»         .  T  Madison  and 

those  of  Madison,  reinforcing  each  other,  Marshall  pre. 

mi          i          -T       vail  and  Vir' 

bore  down  all  opposition.     Ihe  details  gima  ratines, 

June  25. 

of  the  controversy  were  much  the  same 

as   in  the  states   already  passed   in  review,  save 


338  CROWNING   THE    WORK. 

in  so  far  as  coloured  by  the  peculiar  circumstances 
of  Virginia.  After  more  than  three  weeks  of  de 
bate,  on  the  25th  of  June,  the  question  was  put  to 
vote,  and  the  Constitution  was  ratified  by  the  nar 
row  majority  of  89  against  79.  Amendments  were 
offered,  after  the  example  of  Massachusetts,  which 
had  already  been  followed  by  South  Carolina  and 
the  minority  in  Maryland  ;  and,  as  in  Massachu 
setts,  the  defeated  Antifederalists  announced  their 
intention  to  abide  loyally  by  the  result. 

The  discussion  had  lasted  so  long  that  Virginia 
lost  the  distinction  of  being  the  ninth  state  to  ratify 
the  Constitution.  That  honour  had  been  reserved 
NewHamp-  for  New  Hampshire,  whose  convention 
readyhrat5ted,  had  met  on  the  anniversary  of  Bunker 
Hill,  and  after  a  four  days'  session,  on 
the  21st  of  June,  had  given  its  consent  to  the  new 
government  by  a  vote  of  57  against  46.  The 
couriers  from  Virginia  and  those  from  New  Hamp 
shire,  as  they  spurred  their  horses  over  long  miles 
of  dusty  road,  could  shout  to  each  other  the  joyous 
news  in  passing.  Though  the  ratification  of  New 
Hampshire  had  secured  the  necessary  ninth  state, 
yet  the  action  of  Virginia  was  not  the  less  signifi 
cant  and  decisive.  Virginia  was  at  that  time,  and 
for  a  quarter  of  a  century  afterward,  the  most  popu 
lous  state  in  the  Union,  and  one  of  the  greatest  in 
influence.  Even  with  the  needed  nine  states  all  in 
hand,  it  is  clear  that  the  new  government  could  not 
have  gone  into  successful  operation  with  the  lead 
ing  state,  the  home  of  Washington  himself,  left  out 
in  the  cold.  The  New  Eoof,  as  men  were  then 
fond  of  calling  the  Federal  Constitution,  must 


CROWNING   THE    WORK.  339 

speedily  have  fallen  in  without  this  indispensable 
prop.  When  it  was  known  that  Virginia  had  rati 
fied,  it  was  felt  that  the  victory  was  won,  and  the 
success  of  the  new  scheme  assured.  The  4th  of 
July,  1788,  witnessed  such  loud  rejoicings  as  have 
perhaps  never  been  seen  before  or  since  on  Ameri 
can  soil.  In  Philadelphia  there  was  a  procession 
miles  in  length,  in  which  every  trade  was  repre 
sented,  and  wagons  laden  with  implements  of  in 
dustry  or  emblematic  devices  alternated  with  bands 
of  music  and  gorgeous  banners.  There  figured 
the  New  Roof,  supported  by  thirteen  columns,  and 
there  was  to  be  seen  the  Ship  of  State,  the  good 
ship  Constitution,  made  out  of  the  barge  which 
Paul  Jones  had  taken  from  the  shattered  and 
blood-stained  Serapis,  after  his  terrible  fight.  As 
for  the  old  scow  Confederacy,  Imbecility  master, 
it  was  proclaimed  she  had  foundered  at  sea,  and 
44  the  sloop  Anarchy,  when  last  heard  from,  was 
ashore  on  Union  Rocks."  All  over  the  country 
there  were  processions  and  bonfires,  and  in  some 
towns  there  were  riots.  In  Providence  the  FederT 
alists  prepared  a  barbecue  of  oxen  roasted  whole, 
but  a  mob  of  farmers,  led  by  three  members  of  the 
state  legislature,  attempted  to  disperse  them,  and 
were  with  some  difficulty  pacified.  In  Albany  the 
Antifederalists  publicly  burned  the  Constitution, 
whereupon  a  party  of  Federalists  brought  out  an 
other  copy  of  it,  and  nailed  it  to  the  top  of  a  pole, 
which  they  planted  defiantly  amid  the  ashes  of  the 
fire  their  opponents  had  made.  Out  of  these  pro 
ceedings  there  grew  a  riot,  in  which  knives  were 
drawn,  stones  were  thrown,  and  blood  was  shecj. 


340  CROWNING   THE    WORK. 

Such  incidents  might  have  served  to  remind  one 
that  the  end  had  not  yet  come.  The  difficulties 
were  not  yet  surmounted,  and  the  rejoicing  was  in 
some  respects  premature.  It  was  now  settled  that 
the  new  government  was  to  go  into  operation,  but 
how  it  was  going  to  be  able  to  get  along  without 
the  adhesion  of  New  York  it  was  not  easy  to  see. 

The  struggle  ^  *s  *rue  *^at  ^ew  York  then  ranked 
in  New  York.  onjy  as  fifth  among  the  states  in  popula 
tion,  but  commercially  and  militarily  she  was  the 
centre  of  the  Union.  She  not  only  touched  at  once 
on  the  ocean  and  the  lakes,  but  she  separated  New 
England  from  the  rest  of  the  country.  It  was 
rightly  felt  that  the  Union  could  never  be  cemented 
without  this  central  state.  So  strongly  were  peo 
ple  impressed  with  this  feeling  that  some  went  so 
far  as  to  threaten  violence.  It  was  said  that  if 
New  York  did  not  come  into  the  Union  peacefully 
and  of  her  own  accord,  she  should  be  conquered 
and  dragged  in.  That  she  would  come  in  peace 
fully  seemed  at  first  very  improbable.  When  the 
state  convention  assembled  at  Poughkeepsie,  on 
the  17th  of  June,  more  than  two  thirds  of  its 
members  were  avowed  Antifederalists.  At  their 
Lead  was  the  governor,  George  Clinton,  hard-headed 
and  resolute,  the  bitterest  hater  of  the  Constitution 
that  could  be  found  anywhere  in  the  thirteen  states. 
Foremost  among  his  supporters  were  Yates  and 
Lansing,  with  Melanchthon  Smith,  a  man  familiar 
with  political  history,  and  one  of  the  ablest  de 
baters  in  the  country.  On  the  Federalist  side 
were  such  eminent  men  as  Livingston  and  Jay; 
but  the  herculean  task  of  vanquishing  this  great 


CROWNING   THE   WORK.  341 

hostile  majority,  and  converting  it  by  sheer  dint  of 
argument  into  a  majority  on  the  right  side,  fell 
chiefly  upon  the  shoulders  of  one  man.  But  for 
Alexander  Hamilton  the  decision  of  New  York 
would  unquestionably  have  been  adverse  to  the 
Constitution.  Nay,  more,  it  is  very  improbable 
that,  but  for  him,  the  good  work  would  have  made 
such  progress  as  it  had  in  the  other  states.  To  get 
the  people  to  adopt  the  Constitution,  it  was  above 
all  things  needful  that  its  practical  working  should 
be  expounded,  in  language  such  as  every  one  could 
understand,  by  some  writer  endowed  in  the  highest 
degree  with  political  intelligence  and  foresight. 
Upon  their  return  from  the  Federal  Convention, 
Yates  and  Lansing  had  done  all  in  their  power  to 
bring  its  proceedings  into  ill-repute.  Pamphlets 
and  broadsides  were  scattered  right  and  left.  The 
Constitution  was  called  the  "triple-headed  mon 
ster,"  and  declared  to  be  "  as  deep  and  wicked  a 
conspiracy  as  ever  was  invented  in  the  darkest  ages 
against  the  liberties  of  a  free  people."  It  soon  oc 
curred  to  Hamilton  that  it  would  be  well  worth 
while  to  explain  the  meaning  of  all  parts  of  the 
Constitution  in  a  series  of  short,  incisive  essays. 
He  communicated  his  plan  to  Madison  and  Jay, 
who  joined  him  in  the  work,  and  the  result  was 
the  "Federalist,"  perhaps  the  most  famous  of 
American  books,  and  undoubtedly  the  most  pro 
found  and  suggestive  treatise  on  government  that 
has  ever  been  written.  Of  the  eighty-five  numbers 
originally  published  in  the  "  Indepen-  ^up.^. 
dent  Gazetteer,"  under  the  common  sig-  eralist-" 
nature  of  "Publius,"  Jay  wrote  five,  Madison 


342  CROWNING   THE   WORK. 

twenty-nine,  and  Hamilton  fifty-one.  Jay's  papers 
related  chiefly  to  diplomatic  points,  with  which  his 
experience  abroad  had  fitted  him  to  deal.  The 
first  number  was  written  by  Hamilton  in  the  cabin 
of  a  sloop  on  the  Hudson,  in  October,  1787 ;  and 
they  continued  to  appear,  sometimes  as  often  as 
three  or  four  in  a  week,  through  the  winter  and 
spring.  Madison  would  have  contributed  a  larger 
share  than  he  did  had  he  not  been  called  early  in 
March  to  Virginia  to  fight  the  battle  of  the  Con 
stitution  in  that  state.  The  essays  were  widely 
and  eagerly  read,  and  probably  accomplished  more 
toward  insuring  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution 
than  anything  else  that  was  said  or  done  in  that 
eventful  year.  They  were  hastily  written,  —  struck 
out  at  white  heat  by  men  full  of  their  subject. 
Doubtless  the  authors  did  not  realize  the  grandeur 
of  the  literary  work  they  were  doing,  and  among 
the  men  of  the  time  there  were  few  who  foresaw 
the  immortal  fame  which  these  essays  were  to  earn. 
It  is  said  of  one  of  the  senators  in  the  first  Con 
gress  that  he  made  the  memorandum,  "  Get  the 
'  Federalist,'  if  I  can,  without  buying  it.  It  is  n't 
worth  it."  But  for  all  posterity  the  "  Federalist " 
must  remain  the  most  authoritative  commentary 
upon  the  Constitution  that  can  be  found ;  for  it  is 
the  joint  work  of  the  principal  author  of  that  Con 
stitution  and  of  its  most  brilliant  advocate. 

In  nothing  could  the  flexibleness  of  Hamilton's 
intellect,  or  the  genuineness  of  his  patriotism,  have 
been  more  finely  shown  than  in  the  hearty  zeal  and 
transcendent  ability  with  which  he  now  wrote  in 
defence  of  a  plan  of  government  so  different  from 


CROWNING   THE    WORK.  343 

what  he  would  himself  have  proposed.  He  made 
Madison's  thoughts  his  own,  until  he  set  them 
forth  with  even  greater  force  than  Madison  him 
self  could  command.  Yet  no  arguments  could 
possibly  be  less  chargeable  with  partisanship  than 
the  arguments  of  the  "Federalist."  The  judgment 
is  as  dispassionate  as  could  be  shown  in  a  philo 
sophical  treatise.  The  tone  is  one  of  grave  and  lofty 
eloquence,  apt  to  move  even  to  tears  the  reader 
who  is  fully  alive  to  the  stupendous  issues  that 
were  involved  in  the  discussion.  Hamilton  was 
supremely  endowed  with  the  faculty  of  imagining, 
with  all  the  circumstantial  minuteness  of  concrete 
reality,  political  situations  different  from  those 
directly  before  him ;  and  he  put  this  rare  power  to 
noble  use  in  tracing  out  the  natural  and  legitimate 
working  of  such  a  Constitution  as  that  which  the 
Federal  Convention  had  framed. 

When  it  came  to  defending  the  Constitution 
before  the  hostile  convention  at  Poughkeepsie,  he 
had  before  him  as  arduous  a  task  as  ever  fell  to 
the  lot  of  a  parliamentary  debater.  It  was  a  case 
where  political  management  was  out  of  the  ques 
tion.  The  opposition  were  too  numerous  to  be 
silenced,  or  cajoled,  or  bargained  with.  They 
must  be  converted.  With  an  eloquence  scarcely 
equalled  before  or  since  in  America  until  Webster's 
voice  was  heard,  Hamilton  argued  week  after  week, 
till  at  last  Melanchthon  Smith,  the  foremost  debater 
of  Clinton's  party,  broke  away,  and  came  to  the 
Federalist  side.  It  was  like  crushing  the  centre 
of  a  hostile  army.  After  this  the  Antifederalist 
forces  were  confused  and  easily  routed.  The  de< 


344  CROWNING    THE    WORK. 

cisive  struggle  was  over  the  question  whether  New 
York  could  ratify  the  Constitution  conditionally, 
reserving  to  herself  the  right  to  withdraw  from  the 
Union  in  case  the  amendments  upon  which  she 
had  set  her  heart  should  not  be  adopted.  Upon 
this  point  Hamilton  reinforced  himself  with  the 
advice  of  Madison,  who  had  just  returned  to  New 
York.  Could  a  state  once  adopt  the  Constitution, 
and  then  withdraw  from  the  Union  if  not  satisfied  ? 
Madison's  reply  was  prompt  and  decisive.  No, 
such  a  thing  could  never  be  done.  A  state  which 
had  once  ratified  was  in  the  federal  bond 

Hamilton  wins  __.,        ~  .  ,  _ 

the  victory,      f orevcr.    The  Constitution  could  not  pro- 

and  New  York        .  . 

ratines,  Jaiy  vide  tor  nor  contemplate  its  own  over 
throw.  There  could  be  no  such  thing 
as  a  constitutional  right  of  secession.  When  Me- 
lanchthon  Smith  deserted  the  Antifederalists  on 
this  point,  the  victory  was  won,  and  on  the  26th  of 
July  New  York  ratified  the  Constitution  by  the 
bare  majority  of  30  votes  against  27.  Rejoicings 
were  now  renewed  throughout  the  country.  In  the 
city  of  New  York  there  was  an  immense  parade, 
and  as  the  emblematic  federal  ship  was  drawn 
through  the  streets,  with  Hamilton's  name  embla 
zoned  on  her  side,  it  was  doubtless  the  proudest 
moment  of  the  young  statesman's  life. 

New  York,  however,  clogged  her  acceptance  by 
proposing,  a  few  days  afterward,  that  a  second 
Federal  Convention  be  called  for  considering  the 
amendments  suggested  by  the  various  states.  The 
proposal  was  supported  by  the  Virginia  legisla 
ture,  but  Massachusetts  and  Pennsylvania  opposed 
it,  as  having  a  dangerous  tendency  to  reopen  the 


CROWNING   THE    WORK.  345 

whole  discussion  and  unsettle  everything.  The 
proposal  fell  to  the  ground.  People  were  weary 
of  the  long  dispute,  and  turned  their  attention  to 
electing  representatives  to  the  first  Congress. 
With  the  adhesion  of  New  York  all  serious  anxi 
ety  came  to  an  end.  The  new  government  could 
be  put  in  operation  without  waiting  for  North 
Carolina  and  Rhode  Island  to  make  up  their 
minds.  The  North  Carolina  convention  The  laggard 
met  on  the  21st  of  July,  and  adjourned  SroUnaand 
on  the  1st  of  August  without  coming  to  Ehode  Island- 
any  decision.  The  same  objections  were  raised  as 
in  Virginia;  and  besides,  the  paper-money  party 
was  here  much  stronger  than  in  the  neighbouring 
state.  In  Rhode  Island  paper  money  was  the  chief 
difficulty ;  that  state  did  not  even  take  the  trouble 
to  call  a  convention.  It  was  not  until  the  21st  of 
November,  1789,  after  Washington's  government 
had  been  several  months  in  operation,  that  North 
Carolina  joined  the  Federal  Union.  Rhode  Island 
did  not  join  till  the  29th  of  May,  1790.  If  she 
had  waited  but  a  few  months  longer,  Vermont,  the 
first  state  not  of  the  original  thirteen,  would  have 
come  in  before  her. 

The  autumn  of  1788  was  a  season  of  busy  but 
peaceful  electioneering.  That  remarkable  body,  the 
Continental  Congress,  in  putting  an  end  to  its 
troubled  existence,  decreed  that  presidential  elec 
tors  should  be  chosen  on  the  first  Wednesday  of 
January,  1789,  that  the  electors  should  meet  and 
cast  their  votes  for  president  on  the  first  Wednes 
day  in  February,  and  that  the  Senate  and  House 
of  Representatives  should  assemble  on  the  first 


346  CROWNING   THE    WORK. 

Wednesday  in  March.  This  latter  day  fell,  in  1789, 
on  the  4th  of  the  month,  and  accordingly,  three 
years  afterward,  Congress  took  it  for  a  precedent, 
and  decreed  that  thereafter  each  new  administra 
tion  should  begin  on  the  4th  of  March.  It  was 
further  decided,  after  some  warm  debate,  that  until 
the  site  for  the  proposed  federal  city  could  be 
selected  and  built  upon,  the  seat  of  the  new  gov 
ernment  should  be  the  city  of  New  York. 

In  accordance  with  these  decrees,  presidential 
elections  were  held  on  the  first  Wednesday  in  Jan 
uary.  The  Antifederalists  were  still  potent  for 
First  presi-  mischief  in  New  York,  with  the  result 
t£n?jan!e7~  *^at'  Just  as  *^at  state  had  not  joined  in 
the  Declaration  of  Independence  until 
after  it  had  been  proclaimed  to  the  world,  and  just 
as  she  refused  to  adopt  the  Federal  Constitution 
until  after  more  than  the  requisite  number  of  states 
had  ratified  it,  so  now  she  failed  to  choose  electors, 
and  had  nothing  to  do  with  the  vote  that  made 
Washington  our  first  president.  The  other  ten 
states  that  had  ratified  the  Constitution  all  chose 
electors.  But  things  moved  slowly  and  cumbrously 
at  this  first  assembling  of  the  new  government. 
The  House  of  Representatives  did  not  succeed  in 
getting  a  quorum  together  until  the  1st  of  April. 
On  the  6th,  the  Senate  chose  John  Langdon  for  its 
president,  and  the  two  houses  in  concert  counted 
the  electoral  votes.  There  were  69  in  all,  and 
every  one  of  the  69  was  found  to  be  for  George 
Washington  of  Virginia.  For  the  second  name 
on  the  list  there  was  nothing  like  such  unanimity. 
It  was  to  be  expected  that  the  other  name  would 


CROWNING   THE    WORK.  347 

be  that  of  a  citizen  of  Massachusetts,  as  the  other 
leading  state  in  the  Union.  The  two  foremost 

o 

citizens  of  Massachusetts  bore  the  same  name,  and 
were  cousins.  There  would  have  been  most  strik 
ing  poetic  justice  in  coupling  with  the  name  of 
Washington  that  of  Samuel  Adams,  since  these 
two  men  had  been  indisputably  foremost  in  the 
work  of  achieving  the  independence  of  the  United 
States.  But  for  the  hesitancy  of  Samuel  Adams 
in  indorsing  the  Federal  Constitution,  he  would 
very  likely  have  been  our  first  vice-president  and 
our  second  president.  But  the  wave  of  federalism 
had  now  begun  to  sweep  strongly  over  Massachu 
setts,  carrying  everything  before  it,  and  none  but 
the  most  ardent  Federalists  had  a  chance  to  meet 
in  the  electoral  college.  Voices  were  raised  in 
behalf  of  Samuel  Adams.  While  we  honour  the 
American  Fabius,  it  was  said,  let  us  not  forget  the 
American  Cato.  It  was  urged  by  some,  with  much 
truth,  that  but  for  his  wise  and  cautious  action  in 
the  Massachusetts  convention,  the  good  ship  Con 
stitution  would  have  been  fatally  wrecked  upon 
the  reefs  of  Shaysism.  His  course  had  not  been 
that  of  an  obstructionist,  like  that  of  his  old  friends 
Henry  and  Lee  and  Gerry;  but  at  the  critical 
moment  —  one  of  the  most  critical  in  all  that  won 
derful  crisis  —  he  had  thrown  his  vast  influence, 
with  decisive  effect,  upon  the  right  side.  All  this 
is  plain  enough  to  the  historian  of  to-day.  But  in 
the  political  fervour  of  the  election  of  1789,  the 
fact  most  clearly  visible  to  men  was  that  Samuel 
Adams  had  hesitated,  and  perhaps  made  things 
wait.  These  points  came  out  most  distinctly  on 


348  CROWNING   THE   WORK. 

the  issue  of  his  election  to  the  Federal  Congress, 
in  which  he  was  defeated  by  the  youthful  Fisher 
Ames,  whose  eloquence  in  the  state  convention  had 
been  so  conspicuous  and  useful ;  but  they  serve  to 
explain  thoroughly  why  he  was  not  put  upon  the 
presidential  list  along  with  Washington.  His 
cousin,  John  Adams,  had  just  returned  from  his 
mission  to  England,  weary  and  disgusted  with  the 
scanty  respect  which  he  had  been  able  to  secure 
for  a  feeble  league  of  states  that  could  not  make 
good  its  own  promises.  His  services  during  the 
Revolution  had  been  of  the  most  splendid  sort : 
and  after  Washington,  he  was  the  second  choice 
of  the  electoral  college,  receiving  34  votes,  while 
John  Jay  of  New  York,  his  nearest  competitor, 
received  only  9.  John  Adams  was  accordingly 
declared  vice-president. 

On  the  14th  of  April  Washington  was  informed 
of  his  election,  and  on  the  next  day  but  one  he  bid 
adieu  again  to  his  beloved  home  at  Mount  Vernon, 
where  he  had  hoped  to  pass  the  remainder  of  his 
days  in  that  rural  peace  and  quiet  for  which  no 
one  yearns  like  the  man  who  is  burdened  with 
greatness  and  fame  unsought  for.  The  position  to 
which  he  was  summoned  was  one  of  unparalleled 
splendour,  —  how  splendid  we  can  now  realize 
much  better  than  he,  and  our  grandchildren  will 
realize  it  better  than  we,  —  the  position  of  first 
ruler  of  what  was  soon  to  become  at  once  the 
strongest  and  the  most  peace-loving  people  upon 
the  face  of  the  earth.  As  he  journeyed  toward 
New  York,  his  thoughts  must  have  been  busy  with 
the  arduous  problems  of  the  time.  Already,  doubt- 


CROWNING   THE    WORK.  349 

less,  he  had  marked  out  the  two  great  men,  Jeffer 
son  and  Hamilton,  for  his  chief  advisers :  the  one 
to  place  us  in  a  proper  attitude  before  the  mocking 
nations  of  Europe ;  the  other  to  restore  our  shat 
tered  credit,  and  enlist  the  moneyed  interests  of 
all  the  states  in  the  success  of  the  Federal  Union. 
Washington's  temperament  was  a  hopeful  one,  as 
befitted  a  man  of  his  strength  and  dash.  But  in 
his  most  hopeful  mood  he  could  hardly  have  dared 
to  count  upon  such  a  sudden  and  wonderful  demon- 
stration  of  national  strength  as  was  about  to  ensue 
upon  the  heroic  financial  measures  of  Hamilton, 
His  meditations  on  this  journey  we  may  well  be 
lieve  to  have  been  solemn  and  anxious  enough. 
But  if  he  could  gather  added  courage  from  the 
often-declared  trust  of  his  fellow-countrymen,  there 
was  no  lack  of  such  comfort  for  him.  At  every 
town  through  which  he  passed,  fresh  evidences  of 
it  were  gathered,  but  at  one  point  on  the  route  his 
strong  nature  was  especially  wrought  upon.  At 
Trenton,  as  he  crossed  the  bridge  over  the  Assun- 
pink  Creek,  where  twelve  years  ago,  at  the  darkest 
moment  of  the  Revolution,  he  had  outwitted  Corn< 
wallis  in  the  most  skilful  of  stratagems,  and  turned 
threatening  defeat  into  glorious  victory,  —  at  this 
spot,  so  fraught  with  thrilling  associations,  he  was 
met  by  a  party  of  maidens  dressed  in  white,  who 
strewed  his  path  with  sweet  spring  flowers,  while 
triumphal  arches  in  softest  green  bore  inscriptions 
declaring  that  he  who  had  watched  over  the  safety 
of  the  mothers  could  well  be  trusted  to  protect  the 
daughters.  On  the  23d  he  arrived  in  New  York, 
and  was  entertained  at  dinner  by  Governor  Clin- 


350  CROWNING   THE   WORK. 

ton.     One  week  later,  on  the  30th,  came  the  inau« 

guration.     It  was  one  of  those  magnificent  days  of 

clearest  sunshine  that  sometimes  make 

Inauguration 

of  washing-      one  feel  in  April  as  if  summer  had  come. 

ton,  April  30.  r 

At  noon  of  that  day  Washington  went 
from  his  lodgings,  attended  by  a  military  es 
cort,  to  Federal  Hall,  at  the  corner  of  Wall  and 
Nassau  streets,  where  his  statue  has  lately  been 
erected.  The  city  was  ablaze  with  excitement.  A 
sea  of  upturned  eager  faces  surrounded  the  spot, 
and  as  the  hero  appeared  thousands  of  cocked  hats 
were  waved,  while  ladies  fluttered  their  white  hand 
kerchiefs.  Washington  came  forth  clad  in  a  suit 
of  dark  brown  cloth  of  American  make,  with  white 
silk  hose  and  shoes  decorated  with  silver  buckles, 
while  at  his  side  hung  a  dress-sword.  For  a  mo 
ment  all  were  hushed  in  deepest  silence,  while  the 
secretary  of  the  Senate  held  forth  the  Bible  upon 
a  velvet  cushion,  and  Chancellor  Livingston  ad 
ministered  the  oath  of  office.  Then,  before  Wash 
ington  had  as  yet  raised  his  head,  Livingston 
shouted,  —  and  from  all  the  vast  company  came 
answering  shouts,  —  "  Long  live  George  Washing 
ton,  President  of  the  United  States  1" 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE, 


THE  bibliography  of  the  period  covered  in  this  boot  is 
most  copiously  and  thoroughly  treated  in  the  seventh  volume 
of  Winsor's  Narrative  and  Critical  History  of  America,  Boston, 
1388.  For  the  benefit  of  the  reader  who  may  not  have  ready 
access  to  that  vast  storehouse  of  information,  the  following 
brief  notes  may  be  of  service. 

The  best  account  of  the  peace  negotiations  is  to  be  found 
in  chapter  ii.  of  Winsor's  volume  just  cited,  written  by  Hon. 
John  Jay,  who  had  already  discussed  the  subject  quite  thor 
oughly  in  his  Address  before  the  New  York  Historical  Society 
on  its  Seventy-Ninth  Anniversary,  Nov.  27,  1883.  Of  the 
highest  value  are  Lord  Edmond  Fitzmaurice's  Life  of  Lord 
Shelburne,  3  vols.,  London,  1875-76,  and  Adolphe  de  Cir- 
court,  Histoire  de  V action  commune  de  la  France  et  de  VAme'- 
rique,  etc.,  tome  iii.,  Documents  originaux  inedits,  Iftris,  1876. 
See  also  Sparks,  Diplomatic  Correspondence  of  the  American 
Resolution,  12  vols.,  Boston,  1829-30  ;  Trescot's  Diplomacy 
of  the  American  Revolution,  N.  Y.,  1852  ;  Lyman's  Diplomacy 
of  the  United  States,  Boston,  1826  ;  Elliot's  American  Diplo 
matic  Code,  2  vols.,  Washington,  1834  ;  Chalmers's  Collection 
of  Treaties,  2  vols.,  London,  1790  ;  Lord  Stanhope's  History 
of  England,  vol.  vii.,  London,  1853  ;  Lecky's  History  of  Eng 
land,  vol.  iv.,  London,  1882  ;  Lord  John  Russell's  Memorials 
of  Fox,  4  vols.,  Lqndon,  1853-57 ;  Albemarle's  Rockingham 
and  his  Contemporaries,  2  vols.,  London,  1852  ;  Walpole's 
Last  Journals,  2  vols.,  London,  1859  ;  Force's  American 
Archives,  4th  series,  6  vols.,  Washington,  1839-46  ;  John 
Adams's  Works,  10  vols.,  Boston,  1850-56  ;  Rives's  Life  of 
Madison,  3  vols.,  Boston,  1859-68  ;  Madison's  Letters  and 
ether  Writings,  4  vols.,  Phila.,  1865  ;  the  lives  of  Franklin, 


352  BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE. 

by  Bigelow  and  Parton  ;  the  lives  of  Jay,  by  Jay,  Flanders, 
and  Whitelocke  ;  Morse's  John  Adams,  Boston,  1885  ;  Cor 
respondence  of  George  III.  with  Lord  North,  2  vols.,  London, 
1867  ;  Wharton's  Digest  of  International  Law,  Washington, 
1887,  Appendix  to  vol.  iii.  ;  Hale's  Franklin  in  France,  2 
vols.,  Boston,  1888.  The  view  of  the  treaty  set  forth  in 
1830  by  Sparks,  according  to  which  Jay  and  Adams  were 
quite  mistaken  in  their  suspicions  of  the  French  court,  we 
may  now  regard  as  disposed  of  by  the  evidence  presented 
by  Circourt  and  Fitzmaurice.  It  has  led  many  writers 
astray,  and  even  with  all  the  lights  which  Mr.  Bancroft  has 
had,  the  account  in  the  last  revision  of  his  History  of  the 
United  States,  vol.  v.,  N.  Y.,  1886,  though  in  some  respects 
one  of  the  best  to  be  found  in  the  general  histories,  still 
leaves  much  to  be  desired. 

The  general  condition  of  the  United  States  under  the 
articles  of  confederation  is  well  sketched  in  the  sixth  volume 
of  Bancroft's  final  revision,  and  in  Curtis 's  History  of  the 
Constitution,  2  vols.,  N.  Y.,  1861.  An  excellent  summary  is 
given  in  the  first  volume  of  Schouler's  History  of  the  United 
States  under  the  Constitution,  of  which  vols.  i.-iii.  (Washing 
ton,  1882-85)  have  appeared.  Mr.  Schouler's  book  is  sug 
gestive  and  stimulating.  The  work  most  rich  in  details  is 
Professor  McMaster's  History  of  the  People  of  the  United 
States,  of  which  the  first  volume  rather  more  than  covers 
the  period  1783-89.  The  author  is  especially  deserving 
of  praise  for  the  diligence  with  which  he  has  searched  the 
newspapers  and  obscure  pamphlets  of  the  period.  He  has 
thus  given  much  fresh  life  to  the  narrative,  besides  throwing 
valuable  light  upon  the  thoughts  and  feelings  of  the  men 
who  lived  under  the  "  league  of  friendship."  I  take  plea 
sure  in  acknowledging  my  indebtedness  to  Professor  Me- 
Master  for  several  interesting  illustrative  details,  chiefly  in 
my  third,  fourth,  and  seventh  chapters.  At  the  same  time 
one  is  sorely  puzzled  at  some  of  his  omissions,  as  in  the 
account  of  the  Federal  Convention,  in  which  one  finds  no 
allusion  whatever  to  the  all-important  question  of  the  rep 
resentation  of  slaves,  or  to  the  compromise  by  which  New 
England  secured  to  Congress  full  power  to  regulate  com* 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE.  353 

merce  by  yielding  to  Georgia  and  South  Carolina  in  the 
matter  of  the  African  slave-trade.  So  the  discussion  as  to 
the  national  executive  is  carried  on  till  July  26th,  when 
it  was  decided  that  the  president  should  be  chosen  by  Con 
gress  for  a  single  term  of  seven  years  ;  then  the  subject 
is  dropped,  and  the  reader  is  left  to  suppose  that  such 
was  the  final  arrangement.  Instances  of  what  seems  like 
carelessness  are  sufficiently  numerous  to  make  the  book 
in  some  places  an  unsafe  guide  to  the  general  reader,  but 
in  spite  of  such  defects,  which  a  careful  revision  might 
remedy,  its  value  is  great.  Further  general  information 
as  to  the  period  of  the  Confederation  may  be  found  in 
Morse's  admirable  Life  of  Alexander  Hamilton,  3d  ed.,  2  vols., 
Boston,  1882  ;  J.  C.  Hamilton's  Republic  of  the  United  States, 
7  vols.,  Boston,  1879  ;  Frothingham's  Rise  of  the  Republic, 
Boston,  1872,  chapter  xii. ;  Von  Hoist's  Constitutional  History, 
5  vols.,  Chicago,  1877-85,  chapter  i.  ;  Pitkin's  History  of  the 
United  States,  2  vols.,  New  Haven,  1828,  vol.  ii.  ;  Marshall's 
Life  of  Washington,  5  vols.,  Phila.,  1805-07  ;  Journals  of 
Congress,  13  vols.,  Phila.,  1800  ;  Secret  Journals  of  Congress, 
4  vols.,  Boston,  1820-21. 

On  the  loyalists  and  their  treatment,  the  able  essay  by 
Rsv.  G.  E.  Ellis,  in  Winsor's  seventh  volume,  is  especially 
rich  in  bibliographical  references.  See  also  Sabine's  Loyal 
ists  of  the  American  Revolution,  2  vols.,  Boston,  1864  ;  Ryer- 
son's  Loyalists  of  America,  2  vols.,  Toronto,  1880  ;  Jones's 
New  York  during  the  Revolution,  2  vols.,  N.  Y.,  1879.  Al 
though  chiefly  concerned  with  events  earlier  than  1780,  the 
Journal  and  Letters  of  Samuel  Curwen,  4th  ed.,  Boston,  1864, 
and  especially  the  Diary  and  Letters  of  Thomas  Hutchinson, 
2  vols.,  Boston,  1884-86,  are  valuable  in  this  connection. 

For  the  financial  troubles  the  most  convenient  general 
survey  is  to  be  found  in  A.  S.  Bolles's  Financial  History  of 
the  United  States,  1774-1789,  N.  Y.,  1879  ;  Sparks's  Life  q) 
Gouverneur  Morris,  3  vols.,  Boston,  1832  ;  Pelatiah  Webster's 
Political  Essays,  Phila.,  1791  ;  Phillips's  Colonial  and  Con 
tinental  Paper  Currency,  2  vols.,  Roxbury,  1865-66  ;  Var» 
num's  Case  of  Trevett  v.  Weeden,  Providence,  1787;  Arnold's 
History  of  Rhode  Island,  2  vols.,  5>T.  Y.,  1859-60.  The  best 


354  BIBLIOGRAPHICAL    NOTE. 

account  of  the  Shays  rebellion  in  G.  R.  Minot's  History  of 
the  Insurrections  in  Massachusetts,  Worcester,  1788  ;  see  also 
Barry's  History  of  Massachusetts,  3  vols.,  Boston,  1855-57  ; 
Austin's  Life  of  Gerry,  2  vols.,  Boston,  1828-29.  A  new 
and  interesting  account  of  the  northwestern  cessions  and  the 
Ordinance  of  1787  is  B.  A.  Hinsdale's  Old  Northwest,  N.  Y., 
1888;  see  also  Dunn's  Indiana,  Boston,  1888;  Cutler's  Life, 
Journal,  and  Correspondence  of  Manasseh  Cutler,  2  vols., 
Cincinnati,  1887. 

In  the  Johns  Hopkins  University  Studies  in  Historical  and 
Political  Science,  the  following  articles  bear  especially  upon 
subjects  here  treated  and  are  worthy  of  careful  study  :  II., 
v.,  vi.,  H.  C.  Adams,  Taxation  in  the  United  States,  1789- 
1816;  III.,  i.,  H.  B.  Adams,  Maryland's  Influence  upon  Land 
Cessions  to  the  United  States  •  III.,  ix.,  x.,  Davis,  American 
Constitutions  •  IV.,  v.,  Jameson's  Introduction  to  the  Consti 
tutional  and  Political  History  of  the  Individual  States ;  IV., 
vii.-ix.,  Shoshuke  Sato's  History  of  the  Land  Question  in  the 
United  States. 

For  the  proceedings  of  the  Federal  Convention  in  framing 
the  Constitution,  and  of  the  several  state  conventions  in  rati 
fying  it,  the  great  treasure-house  of  authoritative  informa 
tion  is  Elliot's  Debates  in  the  Conventions,  5  vols.,  originally 
published  under  the  sanction  of  Congress  in  1830-45;  new 
reprint,  Phila.,  1888.  The  contents  of  the  volumes  are  as 
follows  :  — 

I.  Sundry  preliminary  papers,  relating  to  the  ante-revo 
lutionary  period,  and  the  period  of  the  Confederation; 
journal  of  the  Federal  Convention  ;  Yates's  minutes 
of  the  proceedings  ;  the  official  letters  of  Martin, 
Yates,  Lansing,  Randolph,  Mason,  and  Gerry,  in  ex 
planation  of  their  several  courses;  Jay's  address  to  the 
people  of  New  York  ;  and  other  illustrative  papers. 
II.,  III.,  IV.  Proceedings  of  the  several  state  conven 
tions;  with  other  documents,  including  the  Virginia 
and  Kentucky  resolutions  of  1798,  and  data  relating 
thereto. 

V.  Madison's  journal  of  debates  in  the  Congress  of  the 
Confederation,    Nov.   4,   1782 -June   21,    1783,   and 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE.  355 

Feb.  19 -April  25,  1787  ;  Madison's  journal  of  the 
Federal  Convention  ;  letters  from  Madison  to  Wash 
ington,  Jefferson,  and  Randolph,  Sept.  1787  -  Nov. 
1788  ;  and  other  papers. 

The  best  edition  of  the  "  Federalist "  is  by  H.  C.  Lodge, 
N.  Y.,  1888.  See  also  Story's  Commentaries  on  the  Constitu 
tion,  4th  ed.,  3  vols.,  Boston,  1873  ;  the  works  of  Daniel 
Webster,  6  vols.,  Boston,  1851  ;  Kurd's  Theory  of  our  Na 
tional  Existence,  Boston,  1881.  The  above  works  expound 
the  Constitution  as  not  a  league  between  sovereign  states 
but  a  fundamental  law  ordained  by  the  people  of  the  United 
States.  The  opposite  view  is  presented  in  The  Republic  of 
Republics,  by  P.  C.  Centz  [Plain  Common  Sense,  pseudonym 
of  B.  J.  Sage  of  New  Orleans],  Boston,  1881  ;  the  works  of 
Calhoun,  6  vols.,  N.  Y.,  1853-55  ;  A.  H.  Stephens's  War  be 
tween  the  States,  2  vols.,  Phila.,  1868  ;  Jefferson  Davis's  Rise 
and  Fall  of  the  Confederate  Government,  2  vols.,  N.  Y.,  1881. 
Several  volumes  of  the  "American  Statesmen"  contain 
interesting  accounts  of  discussions  in  the  various  conventions, 
as  Tyler's  Patrick  Henry,  Hosmer's  Samuel  Adams,  Lodge's 
Hamilton,  Magruder's  Marshall,  Roosevelt's  Morris.  Gay's 
Madison  falls  far  below  the  general  standard  of  this  excel 
lent  and  popular  series.  No  satisfactory  biography  of  Madi 
son  has  yet  been  written,  though  the  voluminous  work  of 
W.  C.  Rives  contains  much  good  material.  For  judicial 
interpretations  of  the  Constitution  one  may  consult  B.  R. 
Curtis's  Digest  of  Decisions,  1790-1854  ;  Flanders's  Lives  of 
the  Chief  Justices,  Phila.,  1858  ;  Marshall's  Writings  on  the 
Federal  Constitution,  ed.  Perkins,  Boston,  1839  ;  see  also 
Pomeroy's  Constitutional  Law,  N.  Y.,  1868  ;  Wharton's  Com 
mentaries,  Phila.,  1884  ;  Von  Hoist's  Calhoun,  Boston,  1882; 
Tyler's  Letters  and  Times  of  the  Tylers,  2  vols.,  Richmond, 
1884-85.  Among  critical  and  theoretical  works,  Fisher's 
Trial  of  the  Constitution,  Phila.,  1862,  and  Lockwood's  Abo 
lition  of  the  Presidency,  N.  Y.,  1884,  are  variously  suggestive; 
Woodrow  Wilson's  Congressional  Government,  Boston,  1885, 
is  a  work  of  rare  ability,  pointing  out  the  divergence  which 
nas  arisen  between  the  literary  theory  of  our  government 
and  its  practical  working.  Walter  Bagehot's  English  Consti* 


356  BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  NOTE. 

tution,  revised  ed.,  Boston,  1873,  had  already,  in  a  most  pro* 
found  and  masterly  fashion,  exhibited  the  divergence  he- 
tween  the  literary  theory  and  the  actual  working  of  the 
British  government.  Some  points  of  weakness  in  the  British 
system  are  touched  in  Albert  Stickney's  True  Republic, 
N.  Y.,  1879  ;  see  also  his  Democratic  Government,  N.  Y.,  1885. 
The  constitutional  history  of  England  is  presented,  in  its 
earlier  stages,  with  prodigious  learning,  by  Dr.  Stubbs,  3 
vols.,  London,  1873-78,  and  in  its  later  stages  by  Hallam, 
2  vols.,  London,  1842,  and  Sir  Erskine  May,  2  vols.,  Bos 
ton,  1862-63  ;  see  also  Freeman's  Growth  of  the  English 
Constitution,  London,  1872  ;  Comparative  Politics,  London, 
1873 ;  Some  Impressions  of  the  United  States,  London, 
1883  ;  Rudolph  Gneist,  History  of  the  English  Constitution,  2 
vols.,  London,  1886  ;  J.  S.  Mill,  Representative  Government, 
N.  Y.,  1862  ;  Sir  H.  Maine,  Popular  Government,  N.  Y.,  1886  ; 
S.  R.  Gardiner's  Introduction  to  the  Study  of  English  History, 
London,  1881.  In  this  connection  I  may  refer  to  my  own 
book,  American  Political  Ideas,  N.  Y.,  1885 ;  and  my  articles, 
"Great  Britain,"  "House  of  Lords,"  and  "House  of  Com 
mons,"  in  Lalor's  Cyclopaedia  of  Political  Science,  3  vols., 
Chicago,  1882-84.  It  is  always  pleasant  to  refer  to  that 
cyclopaedia,  because  it  contains  the  numerous  articles  on 
American  history  by  Prof.  Alexander  Johnston.  One  must 
stop  somewhere,  and  I  will  conclude  by  saying  that  I  do  not 
know  where  one  can  find  anything  more  richly  suggestive 
than  Professor  Johnston's  articles. 


MEMBERS  OF  THE  FEDERAL  CONVENTION. 


THE  names  of  those  who  for  various  reasons  were  absent 
when  the  Constitution  was  signed  are  given  in  italics  ;  the 
names  of  those  who  were  present,  but  refused  to  sign,  are 
given  in  small  capitals. 

New  Hampshire .  .  .  John  Langdon. 

Nicholas  Oilman. 
Massachusetts  ....  ELBRIDGE  GERRY. 

Nathaniel  Gorham. 

Rufus  King. 

Caleb  Strong. 
Connecticut   .....  William  Samuel  Johnson. 

Roger  Sherman. 

Oliver  Ellsworth. 
New  York Robert  Yates. 

Alexander  Hamilton* 

John  Lansing. 
New  Jersey William  Livingston. 

David  Brearley. 

William  Churchill  Housim. 

William  Paterson. 

Jonathan  Dayton. 
Pennsylvania    ....  Benjamin  Franklin. 

Thomas  Mifflin. 

Robert  Morris. 

George  Clymer. 

Thomas  Fitzsimmons. 

Jared  Ingersoll. 

James  Wilson. 

Gouverneur  Morris. 


358     MEMBERS  OF  FEDERAL  CONVENTION. 

Delaware George  Read. 

Gunning  Bedford. 

John  Dickinson. 

Richard  Bassett. 

Jacob  Broom. 
Maryland James  McHenry. 

Daniel  of  St.  Thomas  Jenifer. 

Daniel  Carroll. 

John  Francis  Mercer. 

Luther  Martin. 
Virginia  •  • George  Washington. 

EDMUND  RANDOLPH. 

John  Blair. 

James  Madison. 

GEORGE  MASON. 

George  Wythe. 

James  McClurg. 
North  Carolina  .  .  .  Alexander  Martin. 

William  Richardson  Davie. 

William  Blount. 

Richard  Dobbs  Spaight. 

Hugh  Williamson. 
South  Carolina ....  John  Rutledge. 

Charles  Cotesworth  Pinckney. 

Charles  Pinckney. 

Pierce  Butler. 
Georgia William  Few. 

Abraham  Baldwin. 

William  Pierce. 

William  Houstoun. 

Of  those  who  signed  their  names  to  the  Federal  Constitu 
tion,  the  six  following  were  signers  of  the  Declaration  of 
Independence  :  — 

Roger  Sherman, 

Benjamin  Franklin, 

Robert  Morris, 

George  Clymer, 

James  Wilson, 

George  Read. 


MEMBERS  OF  FEDERAL  CONVENTION.    359 

The  ten  following  were  appointed  as  delegates  to  the  Fed 
eral  Convention,  but  never  took  their  seats  :  — 

New  Hampshire .  .  .  John  Pickering. 

Benjamin  West. 

Massachusetts  ....  Francis  Dana. 
New  Jersey John  Nelson. 

Abraham  Clark. 

Virginia Patrick  Henry  (declined). 

North  Carolina  .  .  .  Richard  Caswell  (resigned). 

Willie  Jones  (declined). 
Georgia George  Walton. 

Nathaniel  Pendleton. 

No  delegates  were  appointed  by  Rhode  Island.  In  a  letter 
addressed  to  "  the  Honourable  the  Chairman  of  the  General 
Convention,"  and  dated  "  Providence,  May  11,  1787,"  sev 
eral  leading  citizens  of  Rhode  Island  expressed  their  regret 
that  their  state  should  not  be  represented  on  so  momentous 
an  occasion.  At  the  same  time,  says  the  letter,  "  the  result 
of  your  deliberations  ...  we  still  hope  may  finally  be  ap 
proved  and  adopted  by  this  state,  for  which  we  pledge  our 
influence  and  best  exertions."  The  letter  was  signed  by 
John  Brown,  Joseph  Nightingale,  Levi  Hall,  Philip  Allen, 
Paul  Allen,  Jabez  Bowen,  Nicholas  Brown,  John  Jinkes, 
Welcome  Arnold,  William  Russell,  Jeremiah  Olney,  William 
Barton,  and  Thomas  Lloyd  Halsey.  The  letter  was  pre 
sented  to  the  Convention  on  May  28th  by  Gouverneur  Mor 
ris,  and,  "  being  read,  was  ordered  to  lie  on  the  table  for 
further  consideration."  See  Elliot's  Debates,  v.  125. 

The  Constitution  was  ratified  by  the  thirteen  states,  a* 
follows  :  — 

1.  Delaware Dec.  6, 1787. 

2.  Pennsylvania Dec.  12,  1787. 

3.  New  Jersey Dec.  18,  1787. 

4.  Georgia Jan.  2,  1788. 

5.  Connecticut Jan.  9,  1788. 

6.  Massachusetts Feb.  6,  1788. 

7.  Maryland April  28,  1788. 


360     PRESIDENTS  OF  THE  CONGRESS. 

8.  South  Carolina May  23,  1788. 

9.  New  Hampshire  ....  June  21,  1788. 

10.  Virginia June  25,  1788. 

11.  New  York July  26,  1788. 

12.  North  Carolina Nov.  21,  1789. 

13.  Rhode  Island May  29,  1790. 


PRESIDENTS   OF  THE  CONTINENTAL 
CONGRESS. 

1.  Peyton  Randolph  of  Virginia Sept.  5,  1774. 

2.  Henry  Middleton  of  South  Carolina.  .  .  Oct.  22,  1774. 
Peyton  Randolph May  10,  1775. 

3.  John  Hancock  of  Massachusetts May  24,  1775. 

4.  Henry  Laurens  of  South  Carolina  ....  Nov.  1,  1777. 

5.  John  Jay  of  New  York Dec.  10,  1778. 

6.  Samuel  Huntington  of  Connecticut   .  .  .  Sept.  28,  1779. 

7.  Thomas  McKean  of  Delaware July  10,  1781. 

8.  John  Hanson  of  Maryland Nov.  5,  1781. 

9.  Elias  Boudinot  of  New  Jersey Nov.  4,  1782. 

10.  Thomas  Mifflin  of  Pennsylvania Nov.  3,  1783. 

11.  Richard  Henry  Lee  of  Virginia Nov.  30,  1784. 

12.  Nathaniel  Gorham  of  Massachusetts  .  .  .  June  6,  1786. 

13.  Arthur  St.  Clair  of  Pennsylvania Feb.  2,  1787. 

14.  Cyrus  Griffin  of  Virginia Jan.  22, 1788. 


INDEX. 


ACADIANS,  205. 

Adams,  Herbert  B.,  192. 

Adams,  John,  arrives  in  Paris,  22; 
his  indignation  at  the  pusillanimous 
instructions  from  Congress,  36; 
condemns  the  Cincinnati,  116;  tries 
in  vain  to  negotiate  commercial 
treaty  with  Great  Britain,  139-141 ; 
negotiates  a  treaty  with  Holland, 
155  ;  obtains  a  loan  there,  156,  157  ; 
his  interview  with  the  envoy  from 
Tripoli,  161 ;  absent  from  the  United 
States  at  the  time  of  the  Federal 
Convention,  223  ;  elected  vice-presi 
dent  of  the.  United  States,  348. 

Adams,  Samuel,  his  devotion  to  local 
self-government,  57,  318 ;  his  com 
mittees  of  correspondence,  92;  op 
poses  Washington's  proposal  for 
pensioning  officers,  106 ;  but  at 
length  supports  the  Commutation 
Act,  114 ;  condemns  the  Cincinnati, 
116,  118;  approves  the  conduct  of 
the  Massachusetts  delegates,  143 ; 
opposes  pardoning  the  ringleaders 
in  the  Shays  insurrection,  184  ;  not 
a  delegate  to  the  Federal  Conven 
tion,  225;  "the  man  of  the  town 
meeting,"  318 ;  in  the  Massachu 
setts  convention,  324,  326-328  ;  why 
not  selected  for  the  vice-presidency, 
J147. 

Albany,  riot  in,  339. 

Amendments  to  Constitution,  302, 330, 
338. 

Ames,  Fisher,  319,  326,  348. 

Amis,  North  Carolinian  trader,  210. 

Amphiktyonic  council,  249. 

Annapolis  convention,  216. 

Antagonisms  between  large  and  small 
states,  244-252 ;  between  east  and 
west,  255 ;  between  north  and  south, 
256-267. 

Antifederilist  party,  309  ;  in  Pennsyl 
vania,  310;  in  Massachusetts,  317, 
324 ;  in  South  Carolina,  334 ;  in 
Virginia,  335-337 ;  iu  New  York,  340, 
341,  346. 

Antipathies  between  states,  62. 

Aranda,  Count,  his  prophecy,  19. 

Aristidee,  pseudonym,  312. 


Aristocracy,  283. 
Aristotle,  225. 

Arkwright,  Sir  Richard,  267. 
Armada,  the  Invincible,  235. 
Armstrong,  John,  109,  150. 
Army,  dread  of,  105,  321. 
Arnold,  Benedict,  28, 106,  15L 
Asbury,  Francis,  85.       • 
Ashburton,  Lord,  5. 
Ashburton  treaty,  26. 
Assemblies,  65. 
Assunpink  Creek,  349. 
Augustine,  158. 

Backus,  Rev.  Isaac,  322. 

Bagehot,  Walter,  291. 

Baldwin,  Abraham,  251. 

Baltimore  and  Ohio  Railroad,  213. 

Baptists  persecuted  in  Virginia,  80. 

Barbary  pirates,  157-161. 

Barre",  Isaac,  41. 

Bedford,  Gunning,  249. 

Bennington,  321. 

Bernard,  Sir  Francis,  298. 

Biennial  elections,  327. 

Bill  of  rights  demanded,  329. 

Blackstone,    Sir    William,   290.    29L 

297. 

Bossuet  on  slavery,  72. 
Boston  Gazette,  quoted,  328. 
Boundaries  of  United   States  as  set- 

tied  by  the  treaty,  25. 
Bowdoin,   James,   143,   180-184,   319, 

324. 

Boyd,  Lieutenant,  122. 
Braddock,  Edward,  305. 
Bradshaw's  Railway  Guide,  171. 
Brearley,  David,  229,  246. 
Bribery,  charges  of,  328. 
British  army  departs,  51. 
British   Constitution   compared  with 

American,  290-298. 
Buff  and  blue  colours,  2. 
Burgesses,  House  of,  in  Virginia,  65. 
Burke,  .aManus,  116. 
Burke,  Edmund,  his  sympathy  with 

the  Americans,  2  ;  could  not  see  the 

need  for  parliamentary  reform,  6; 

his  invective  against  Shelburne,  17  : 

on  the  slave-trade,  72. 
Butler,  Pierce,  258. 


362 


INDEX. 


Cabinet,  the  president's,  299. 

Cabinet  government,  growth  of,  in 
England,  296. 

Camden,  Lord,  5. 

Canada,  Franklin  suggests  that  it 
should  be  ceded  to  the  United  States, 
9,14. 

Carleton,  Sir  Guy,  50,  131. 

Carlisle,  Pa.,  disturbances  at,  315. 

Carpet-bag  governments,  270. 

Carr,  Dabiiey,  92. 

Carrington,  Edward,  204,  307. 

Carroll,  Daniel,  228. 

Carrying  trade,  1G3,  263. 

Cartvvright,  Edmund,  267. 

Catalonian  rebels  indemnified,  29. 

Catholics  in  the  United  States,  87. 

Cato,  pseudonym,  312. 

Cavendish,  Lord  John,  5,  16. 

Censors,  council  of,  in  Pennsylvania, 
150. 

Centinel,  pseudonym,  313. 

Cervantes,  Miguel  de,  159. 

Charles  II.,  29. 

Chase,  Samuel.  322. 

Chatham,  Lord,  188. 

Cherry  Valley,  122. 

Chesapeake  and  Ohio  Canal,  213. 

Chittenden,  Thomas,  121. 

Cincinnati,  order  of  the,  114-118. 

Cincinnati,  the  city,  original  name  of, 
197. 

Cincinnatus,  pseudonym,  312. 

Clan  system,  62. 

Clergymen  in  the  Massachusetts  con 
vention,  319 ;  their  liberal  spirit,  322. 

Cleveland,  Grover,  his  tariff  message, 
294. 

Clinton,  George,  favours  persecution 
of  Tories,  123 ;  an  enemy  to  closer 
union  of  the  states,  145;  defeats 
impost  amendment,  220;  opposes 
the  Constitution,  340 ;  entertains 
President  Washington  at  dinner,  350. 

Clinton,  Sir  Henry,  322. 

Clymer,  George,  311. 

Coalition  ministry,  38-46. 

Coeur-de-Lion  and  Saladin,  161. 

Coinage,  165. 

Coke,  Thomas,  86. 

Columbia  College,  125. 

Commerce,  control  of,  given  to  Con 
gress,  263. 

Common  law  in  the  United  States,  69. 

Commons,  House  of,  in  England,  68  ; 
290-298  ;  in  North  Carolina,  65. 

Compromises  of  the  Federal  Constitu 
tion,  250-267. 

Confederation,  articles  of,  92-98. 

Congress,  Continental,  its  instructions 
to  the  commissioners  at  Paris,  35 ; 
its  weakness,  56,  98,  102-113,  234 ; 
its  anomalous  character,  92 ;  its 
presidents,  96 ;  driven  from  Phila 
delphia  by  drunken  soldiers,  112; 
flees  to  Princeton,  113;  unable  to 


enforce  the  provisions  of  the  treaty, 
119-131,  154;  unable  to  regulate 
commerce,  140-144  ;  afraid  to  inter 
fere  openly  in  the  Shays  rebellion, 
185;  passes  ordinance  for  govern 
ment  of  northwestern  territory, 
203-206;  refuses  to  recommend  a 
convention  for  reforming  the  gov 
ernment,  218;  reconsiders  its  re 
fusal,  221 ;  in  some  respects  a  diplo 
matic  rather  than  a  legislative  body, 
237;  its  migrations,  271,  306;  de 
bates  on  the  Constitution,  307  ; 
submits  it  to  the  states,  308 ;  comes 
to  an  end,  345. 

Congress,  Federal,  powers  granted 
to,  270 ;  choice  of  president  by, 
282-284 ;  counting  electoral  votes  in, 
284,  285,  289. 

Connecticut,  government  of,  65  ;  quar 
rels  with  New  York  and  Pennsylva 
nia,  146-151 ;  keeps  almost  entirely 
clear  of  paper  money,  172  ;  western 
claims  of,  189,  194;  ratifies  the 
Constitution,  316. 

Connecticut  compromise,  the,  250- 
255. 

Conservative  character  of  the  Ameri 
can  Revolution,  64. 

Constitution,  emblematic  federal  ship. 
339,344. 

Convention,  the  Federal,  154,  222- 
305. 

Conway,  Gen.  Henry,  5. 

Cooper,  Dr.  Myles,  126. 

Cornwallis,  Lord,  22,  51,  349. 

Council,  privy,  299. 

Cowardice  of  American  politicians, 
231. 

Crawford,  William,  51. 

Curtis,  B.  R.,  276. 

Cutler,  Manasseh,  203. 

Dane,  Nathan,  204,  217,  307. 
Dayton,  Jonathan,  225,  229. 
Debt,  imprisonment  for,  173. 
Debts  to  British  creditors,  27,  131. 
Delaware,  government  of,  65 ;  ratifies 

the  Constitution,  314. 
Democratic-Republican  party,  309. 
Dickinson,    John,   93,   112,   228,   242, 

243,  281,  283,  299,  312. 
Dissolution  of  Parliament,  298. 
Dollar,  the  Spanish,  165. 
Dunmore,  Lord,  298. 

Election  by  lot,  281 ;  first  presidential, 

346-348. 
Electoral    college    in    Maryland,   66; 

device    adopted    for    choosing    the 

president,     281-287 ;    its    practical 

working,  288. 
Elliot,  Sir  Gilbert,  3. 
Ellsworth,  Oliver,  228,  249,  250,  267, 

269,  274,  276,  280,  300. 
Embargo  acts,  142. 


sNDEX. 


363 


Eminent  domain,  194. 

Episcopal  church,  77-85. 

Erie  Canal,  212,  228. 

Executive,  federal,  241,  277;  length 
of  term,  279;  how  elected,  279- 
285;  corresponds  to  sovereign,  not 
to  prime  minister,  290,  299. 

Exports  not  to  be  taxed,  264,  270. 

"Federal,"  the  word  preferred  to 
"national,"  254. 

Federal  city  under  federal  jurisdic 
tion,  271,  320. 

"  Federal  Farmer  "  (letters  by  R.  H. 
Lee),  314. 

Federal  Street  in  Boston,  331. 

"Federalist,"  the,  235,  341-343. 

Federalist  party,  238,  309. 

Field,  S.  J.,  275. 

Fisheries,  question  of,  20,  26,  37,  139, 
163. 

Fitzherbert,  Alleyne,  22,  45. 

Florida  surrendered  by  Great  Britain 
to  Spain,  37 ;  disputes  about  boun 
dary  of,  208. 

Folkland,  187,  207. 

Fox,  C.  J.,  his  sympathy  with  the 
Americans,  2;  quarrels  with  Shel- 
burne,  6,  14  ;  resigns,  15;  wayward 
ness  of  his  early  career,  16  ;  coalition 
with  North,  38-42  ;  mistake  in  op 
posing  a  dissolution,  48. 

France,  treaty  of  1783  with  Great 
Britain,  37. 

Franklin,  Benjamin,  negotiates  with 
Oswald,  9 ;  overruled  by  Jay  and 
Adams,  23 ;  his  arguments  against 
compensating  the  loyalists,  30 ;  ridi 
cules  the  Cincinnati,  116;  returns 
from  France,  138;  in  the  Federal 
Convention,  225,  250,  277,  299,  303, 
305 ;  lays  the  Constitution  before 
the  Pennsylvania  legislature,  306  ; 
called  a  dotard  by  the  Antifederal- 
ists,  313. 

Franklin,  state  of,  200,  209. 

Frederick  the  Great,  on  republics, 
58. 

Free  trade,  4,  134-139. 

French  army  embarks  at  Boston,  51. 

Froissart,  153. 

Frontier  posts  to  be  surrendered  by 
Great  Britain,  51 ;  why  not  surren 
dered,  152. 

Fugitive  slaves,  206,  267,  333. 

Fur  trade,  132,  164. 

Gadsden,  C.,  122,  334. 

Gallatin,  A.,  125,  134. 

Galloway,  Joseph,  248. 

Gardoqui,  Diego,  209. 

Gates,  Horatio,  108-111,  180. 

George  III.  threatens  to  abdicate,  3  ; 
his  disgust  at  the  coalition,  44  ;  re 
buked  by  House  of  Commons,  46 ; 
his  personal  government  over 


thrown,  48;  hopes  the  Americans 
will  repent  of  their  folly,  58,  141 ; 
resists  the  movement  for  abolishing 
slave-trade,  72;  his  personal  gov 
ernment,  297. 

Georgia  takes  the  lead  in  making  the 
judiciary  elective,  69 ;  abandons 
that  evil  practice,  69 ;  issues  paper 
money,  169;  ratifies  the  Constitu 
tion,  316. 

Germaine,  Lord  George,  39. 

Gerry,  Elbridge,  118,  229,  243,  251, 
252,  256,  269,  279,  282,  298,  303,  304, 
328,  347. 

Gibbon,  Edward,  38,  39. 

Gibraltar,  17,  36. 

Gladstone,  W.  E.,  223,  292,  294. 

Gorham,  Nathaniel,  252,  253,  319. 

Governors,  colonial,  unpopularity  of. 
67. 

Gower,  Lord,  44. 

Grafton,  Duke  of,  5. 

Grantham,  Lord,  17. 

Granville,  Lord,  293. 

Grasse,  Count,  defeated  by  Rodney. 
12,  13. 

Grayson,  William,  162,  205,  337. 

Green  Dragon  tavern,  327. 

Greene,  Nathanael,  94,  102,  108,  116, 
122,  225. 

Grenville,  Thomas,  11. 

Guadaloupe,  36.    / 

Guilford,  Earlof,J44. 

Half-pay  controversy,  106. 

Hamilton,  Alexander,  his  early  life, 
124-126  ;  attacks  the  Trespass  Act, 
128  ;  calls  for  a  federal  convention, 
217  ;  advocates  the  impost  amend 
ment,  220 ;  in  the  Federal  Conven 
tion,  225,  226,  243,  244,  246,  249, 
254,  279,  303,  304  ;  on  inconvertible 
paper,  274  ;  on  the  electoral  college, 
287;  called  a  boy  by  the  Antifed- 
eralists,  313;  authorship  of  the 
"Federalist,"  341-343;  supports 
the  Constitution  in  the  New  York 
convention,  343,  344;  his  financial 
measures,  349. 

Hancock,  John,  104,  184,  318,  319. 
330. 

Hannibal,  158. 

Hargreaves,  James,  267. 

Harrington,  James,  64. 

Harrison,  Benjamin,  337. 

Hartington,  Lord,  293. 

Hartley,  David,  45. 

Hawks,  F.  L.,  82. 

Heath,  Gen.  William,  319. 

Henry,  Patrick,  80,  225,  331,  335,  33$ 

Hint  Club,  169. 

Impost  amendment,  218-240. 

India  bill,  46. 

Insurrections,  suppression  of,  269. 


364 


INDEX. 


Intercitizenship,  94. 
Iroquois  league,  190. 
Irreconcilables  in  the  Federal  Conven 
tion,  226,  242,  244,  24G,  254. 
Isolation  of  states  a  century  ago,  62. 

Jay,  John,  thwarts  Vergennes,  21,  35 ; 
tries  to  establish  free  trade  between 
United  States  and  Great  Britain, 
26;  condemns  persecution  of  To 
ries,  122 ;  on  compensation  for 
slaves,  132  ;  consents  to  the  closing 
of  the  Mississippi  River  for  twenty- 
five  years,  210  ;  why  not  sent  as 
delegate  to  Federal  Convention, 
225 ;  supports  the  Constitution  in 
New  York  convention,  340;  con 
tributes  articles  to  the  "  Federal 
ist,"  341 ;  receives  nine  electoral 
votes  for  the  vice-presidency,  348. 

Jefferson,  Thomas,  opposed  to  slavery, 
72 ;  favours  religious  freedom,  81 ; 
minister  to  France,  138, 155  ;  assists 
Gouverneur  Morris  in  arranging  our 
decimal  currency,  1G6  ;  his  plan  for 
the  government  of  the  northwestern 
territory,  196;  wishes  to  prohibit 
slavery  in  the  national  domain,  198, 
205  ;  his  purchase  of  Louisiana,  207  ; 
absent  from  United  States  at  the 
time  of  the  Federal  Convention, 
225;  his  faith  in  the  people,  226, 
337 ;  his  opinion  of  the  Constitu 
tion,  309 ;  approves  the  action  of 
the  Massachusetts  convention,  331. 

Johnson,  W.  S.,  229. 

Johnston,  Alexander,  223. 

Jones,  Paul,  339. 

Jonesborough,  convention  at,  200. 

Judiciary,  elective,  69;  federal,  242, 
300,  301. 

Juilliard  vs.  Greenman,  275. 

Kentucky,  18,  189,  199,  202,  209,  210. 

Keppel,  Lord,  5,  16,  45. 

.King,  Kufus,  217,  221,  228,  246,  249, 
250,  256,  261,  276,  279,  282,  324, 326. 

King's  Mountain,  28,  200,  321. 

Kings,  election  of,  in  Poland,  279. 

Know  Ye  men  and  Know  Ye  meas 
ures,  177,  243. 

Knox,  Henry,  114. 

Lafayette,  50,  54. 

Langdon,  John,  229,  269,  274, 276, 283, 

346. 
Lansing,  John,  225,  242,  244,  246,  254, 

340,  341. 

Laurens,  Henry,  2,  22. 
Lecky,  W.,  103. 
Ledyard,  Isaac,  128. 
Loe,  Henry,  307,  337. 
Lee,  Richard  Henry,  57, 143,  204,  205, 

225,  307,  313,  318,  328,  336,  337, 3-17. 
M  Letters  from  a  Federal  Farmer,"  by 

R.  H.  Lee,  314. 


Lexington,  50,  321. 

Lincoln,  Abraham,  72, 198,  207. 

Lincoln,  Benjamin,  181-183,  319,  332. 

Livingston,  Robert,  36,  340,  350. 

Livingston,  William,  171,  229. 

Locke,  John,  64,  225. 

Long  Lane  becomes  Federal  Street 
331. 

Long  Parliament,  92,  235. 

Lords,  House  of,  66,  68;  contrasted 
with  Senate,  295. 

Lowndes,  Rawlins,  332-334. 

Loyalists,  compensation  of,  28-33; 
persecution  of,  120-130 ;  did  not 
form,  in  any  proper  sense  of  the 
word,  an  opposition  party,  308. 

Luzenie,  Chevalier  de,  35,  54. 

Lykian  League,  249. 

Macdougall,  Alexander,  107. 

McDuffie,  George,  60. 

MrKean,  Thomas,  316. 

McMaster,  J.  B.,  151. 

Madison,  James,  and  the  Religious 
Freedom  Act,  81 ;  on  right  of  coer 
cion,  100 ;  advocates  five  per  cent, 
impost,  104 ;  on  the  ordinance  of 
1787,  206  ;  moves  that  a  convention 
be  held  to  secure  a  uniform  commer 
cial  policy,  214  ;  succeeds  in  getting 
delegates  appointed,  220 ;  his  char 
acter  and  appearance,  22G,  227  ;  his 
journal  of  the  proceedings,  229 ; 
chief  author  of  the  Virginia  plan, 
233,  267 ;  one  of  the  first  to  arrive 
at  the  fundamental  conception  of 
our  partly  federal  and  partly  na 
tional  government,  239  ;  approves  at 
first  of  giving  Congress  the  power 
to  annul  state  laws,  241  ;  opposes 
the  New  Jersey  plan,  246 ;  declares 
that  the  real  antagonism  is  between 
slave  states  and  free  states,  249, 
256;  author  of  the  three  fifths 
compromise,  260,  261  ;  condemns 
paper  money,  275;  disapproves  of 
election  of  the  executive  by  the 
legislature,  279 ;  approves  of  a  privy 
council,  299  ;  supports  the  Constitu 
tion  in  Congress,  307  ;  called  a  boy 
by  the  Antifederalibts,  313;  sup 
ports  the  Constitution  in  the  Vrr- 
gim'a  convention,  337  ;  part  author 
of  the  "  Federalist,"  341,  342;  de 
nies  that  there  can  be  a  constitu 
tional  right  of  secession,  344. 

Maine  as  part  of  Massachusetts,  317. 

Manchester,  Duke  of,  45. 

Marbois,  Frangois  de  Barbe",  22,  35. 

Marion,  Francis,  122. 

Marshall,  John,  82,  276,  301,  337. 

Martin,  Luther,  229,  242-244,  246, 
249,  250,  254,  275,  322. 

Maryland,  government  of,  65  ;  insists 
upon  cession  of  northwefetern  lands, 
93,  192,  195;  paper  money  in,  170; 


INDEX. 


365 


message  to  Virginia,  215;  ratifies 
the  Constitution,  332. 

Mason,  George,  229,  243,  252,  264, 
2G5,  275,  276,  277,  279,  281,  282, 283, 
299,  303,  304,  335,  337. 

Massachusetts,  government  of,  67 ; 
abolishes  slavery,  75 ;  religious 
bigotry,  7G;  on  the  five  per  cent, 
duty,  104  ;  tries  to  propose  a  conven 
tion  for  increasing  the  powers  of 
Congress,  142  ;  lays  claim  to  a  small 
part  of  Vermont,  152  ;  paper  money 
in,  172-179  ;  western  claims  of,  189  ; 
changes  her  attitude,  221  ;  local 
self-government  in,  317  ;  debates  on 
the  Constitution,  320-330;  ratifies 
it,  suggesting  amendments,  331. 

Massachusetts  Chronicle,  quoted,  120. 

Massacre,  Boston,  321. 

Mayhew,  Jonathan,  92. 

Meade,  William,  79,  83. 

Mentor  and  Phocion,  128. 

Mercer,  J.  F.,  274. 

Methodists,  85. 

Middletown  convention,  113. 

Mifflin,  Thomas,  52. 

Minisink,  122. 

Mirabeau,  Count  de,  116. 

Mississippi  River,  attempt  to  close  it, 
209-211,  335  ;  valley  of  the,  18,  188. 

Monroe,  James,  216. 

Montesquieu,  C.,  225,  291. 

Moonshiners,  334. 

Morris,  Gouverneur,  108,  166,  228, 
242,  251,  261,  264,  269,  273,  276,  279, 
282,  303. 

Morris,  Robert,  108,  167,  228,  312. 

Moultrie,  William,  143,  334. 

Muley  Abdallah,  158. 

Mutiny  act,  321. 

Names  of  persons  and  places,  fashions 
in,  197. 

Nantucket,  163. 

Nason,  Samuel,  321. 

Naval  eminence  of  New  England,  20, 
139. 

Navigation  acts,  138-143, 164. 

Negroes  carried  away  by  British  fleet, 
131. 

Nelson,  Samuel,  276. 

New  Connecticut,  152. 

New  Hampshire  lays  claim  to  Ver 
mont,  151-153 ;  riots  in,  183 ;  hesi 
tates  to  ratify  the  Constitution,  331 ; 
ratifies  it,  338. 

JNew  Jersey  quarrels  with  New  York, 
146 ;  paper  money  in,  171 ;  opposes 
the  attempt  to  close  the  Mississippi, 
211  ;  instructs  her  delegates  to  the 
Annapolis  convention,  217  ;  her  plan 
for  amending  the  articles  of  confed 
eration,  245 ;  ratines  the  Constitu 
tion,  315. 

New  Roof,  338. 

New  York  passea  navigation  and  tariff 


acts  directed  against  neighbouring 
states,  146  ;  lays  claim  to  Vermont, 
151-153 ;  paper  money  in,  170 ; 
western  claims  of,  190,  193 ;  defeats 
the  impost  amendment,  218-220; 
debates  on  the  Constitution,  340- 
344;  ratifies  it,  344;  asks  for  a 
second  convention,  344 ;  fails  to 
choose  electors,  346. 

New  York  Central  Railroad,  212. 

Newburgh  address,  108-112,  118. 

Nicola,  Louis,  his  letter  to  Washing, 
ton,  107, 118. 

Non-importation  agreement,  142. 

North,  Frederick,  Lord,  fall  of  his 
ministry,  1 ;  coalition  with  Fox,  38- 
42  ;  his  blindness,  41 ;  his  proposals 
after  Saratoga,  91 ;  his  subservience 
to  the  king,  297. 

North  Carolina  issues  paper  money, 
169  ;  cedes  her  western  lands  to  the 
United  States,  199 ;  repeals  the  act 
of  cession,  201  ;  delays  her  ratifica 
tion  of  the  Constitution,  345. 

Ohio,  203-206. 

Old  Sarum,  249. 

Old  South  Church,  321. 

Onslow,  George,  2. 

Ordinance  of  1787,  199,  203-206. 

Oregon,  60. 

Oswald,  Richard,  9-14,  22-26,  32,  45. 

Paine,  Thomas,  50,  55,  191. 

Paper    currency,    163-179,   205,    218. 

273-276. 

Parker,  Theodore,  264. 
Parsons,  Samuel  Holden,  203. 
Parsons,  Theophilus,  319,  324, 
Parties,  formation  of,  308. 
Paterson,  William,  229,  245-248,  256. 

258,  274. 
Patterson,  militia  officer  in  Wyoming, 

Payson,  Rev.  Philip,  322. 

Pendleton,  Edmund,  336. 

Pennsylvania,  government  of,  65 ;  first 
tariff  act,  142 ;  quarrels  with  Con 
necticut,  148-150  ;  paper  money  in, 
170;  opposes  the  closing  of  the 
Mississippi,  211  ;  contest  over  the 
Constitution,  309-314;  ratifies  it, 
315. 

Petersham,  scene  of  Shays's  defeat. 
182,  319. 

Philadelphia,  Congress  driven  from, 
112 ;  Federal  Convention  meets  at, 
222;  unparliamentary  proceedings 
in  legislature,  311 ;  celebrates  rati 
fication  by  ten  states,  339. 

Phocion  and  Mentor,  128. 

Pinokney,  Charles,  228,  243,  261,  265, 
266,  269,  276,  277,  334- 

Pinckney,  Cotesworth,  228,  243,  258, 
261,  263,  265,  266,  276,  333,  334. 

Pitt,  Thomas,  4*- 


366 


INDEX. 


Pitt,  William,  chancellor  of  excheq 
uer,  16  ;  denounces  the  coalition, 
39  ;  defends  the  treaty,  43  ;  refuses 
to  form  a  ministry,  44 ;  character, 
47;  prime  minister,  47;  wins  a 
great  political  victorv.  48;  favours 
free  trade  with  the  United  States, 
13G. 

Polish  kings,  election  of,  279. 

Population  as  an  index  of  wealth, 
257. 

Portland,  Duke  of,  16,  45. 

Potomac,  navigation  of,  213-216. 

Poughkeepsie,  convention  at,  340-344. 

Powers  granted  to  federal  govern 
ment,  268. 

Presbyterians,  81,  86. 

Presidents  of  Continental  Congress, 
96. 

Prevost's  march  against  Charleston, 
27. 

Prune  minister  contrasted  with  presi 
dent,  292-294. 

Primogeniture,  abolition  of,  71. 

Proprietary  governments,  65,  71. 

Providence,  R.  I.,  barbecue  and  mob 
at,  339. 

Public  lands,  188. 

Putnam,  Israel,  151. 

Putnam,  Rufus,  203. 

Quebec  act,  18. 
Quesnay,  Francois,  141. 
Quorum,  how  to  make  a,  311. 

Railroads,  political  influence  of,  60. 

Randolph,  Edmund,  229,  233,235,239, 
242,  246,  2G5,  2C9,  275,  270,  277,  282, 
300,  303,  335,  337. 

Rayneval,  Gerard  de,  21. 

Read,  George,  242, 274. 

Reform,  parliamentary,  6. 

Religious  freedom,  progress  in,  76-87. 

Religious  tests  opposed  by  Massachu 
setts  clergymen,  322. 

Representation  of  slaves,  258-262. 

Representatives,  House  of,  236,  252. 

Republican  party,  238. 

Republics,  old  notion  that  they  must 
be  small  in  area,  59. 

Reserve,  Connecticut's  western,  194. 

Revenue  bills,  270. 

Revere,  Paul,  327. 

Revolution,  American,  its  conservative 
character,  64  ;  the  French,  64,  118. 

Shode  Island,  government  of,  65 ;  ex 
tends  franchise  to  Catholics,  77  ;  on 
the  five  per  cent,  duty,  104 ;  paper 
money  in,  172-177 ;  opposes  the 
closing  of  the  Mississippi,  211 ;  does 
not  send  delegates  to  Philadelphia, 
222;  delays  her  ratification  of  the 
Constitution,  345. 

Richmond,  Duke  of,  2,  16. 

Rittenhouse,  David,  111. 

Ro*kktgham,  Marquis  of,  4 ;  instabil 


ity  of  his  ministry,  5  ;  its  excellent 

work,  7 ;  his  death,  15. 
Rodney's  victory  over  Grasse,  12,  13. 
Roman  republic  not  like  the  United 

States,  59. 

Rousseau,  J.  J.,  64,  117. 
Rutgers,  Elizabeth,  127. 
Rutledge,  John,  228,  243,  261, 265, 278. 

279,  281,  300,  334. 

St.  Clair,  Arthur,  197,  206. 

Saladin  and  Cosur-de-Lion,  161. 

Sandy  Hook  light-house,  147. 

Sargent,  Winthrop,  203. 

Schuyler,  Philip,  126,  146,  151,  193. 

Scott,  Sir  Walter,  153. 

Scottish  representation  in  Parliament, 
249. 

Seabury,  Samuel,  84. 

Secession,  threats  of,  211,  218 ;  no  con, 
stitutional  right  of,  344. 

Secrecy  of  the  debates  in  Federa^ 
Convention,  230. 

Sedgwick,  Theodore,  122,  319. 

Self-government,  57,  63,  88. 

Senate,  federal,  made  independent  of 
lower  house,  253 ;  contrasted  with 
House  of  Lords,  295. 

Senates,  origin  of,  66. 

Seven  Years'  War,  13,  188. 

Sevier,  John,  200. 

Shattuck,  Job,  180. 

Shays  rebellion,  180-182,  218,  243, 
316,  319,  325. 

Sheffield,  Lord,  protectionist,  137  ;  on 
the  Barbary  pirates,  160. 

Shelburne,  William,  Earl  of,  his  char 
acter,  4 ;  his  memorandum  on  pro 
posed  cession  of  Canada,  11 ;  prime 
minister,  16 ;  approached  by  Ray 
neval  and  Vaughan,  22 ;  misjudged 
by  Fox,  40  ;  defends  the  treaty,  43  ; 
resigns,  44  ;  his  conduct  justified  by 
his  enemies,  45 ;  understood  the 
principles  of  free  trade,  4,  134. 

Shepard,  William,  180,  181. 

Sherman,  Roger,  229,  243,  250,  255, 
267,  274,  276  279,  283,  299,  313 ;  his 
suggestion  as  to  relations  of  the  ex 
ecutive  to  the  legislature,  278,  280, 
298. 

Shillings,  165. 

Ship-building  in  New  England,  137«r 
139. 

Shute,  Rev.  Daniel,  322. 

Sidney,  Algernon,  64. 

Singletary,  Amos,  322,  324,  325. 

Six  Nations,  190,  203. 

Slave-trade,  foreign,  permitted  for 
twenty  years,  264,  323,  333. 

Slavery  in  the  several  states,  72-75, 
266;  prohibited  in  northwestern 
territory,  205 ;  discussions  about  it 
in  Federal  Convention,  257-267  ; 
condemned  by  George  Mason,  264. 

Slaves,    representation    of,    258-262  j 


INDEX. 


367 


numbers  of,  In  the  several  states, 
266. 

Small  states  converted  to  federalism 
by  the  Connecticut  compromise, 
255,  315. 

Smith,  Adam,  125,  134,  135. 

Smith,  Capt.  John,  191. 

Smith,  Jonathan,  324-326. 

Smith,  Melanchthon,  340,  343,  344. 

Smugglers,  135. 

South  Carolina,  Episcopal  church  in, 
78,  82 ;  revokes  five  per  cent,  im 
post,  108  ;  issues  paper  money,  169  ; 
absolute  need  of  conciliating  her, 
259,  260 ;  makes  bargain  with  New 
England  states,  2G2-2G7 ;  debates 
on  the  Constitution,  332-334  ;  rati 
nes  it,  334. 

Sovereignty  never  belonged  to  sepa 
rate  states,  90. 

Spain,  treaty  of  1783  with  Great 
Brit.vin,  36  ;  attempts  to  close  Mis 
sissippi  River,  208-211,  218,  335. 

Spanish  dollar,  why  it  superseded 
English  pound  as  unit  of  value  in 
America,  166. 

Spermaceti  oil,  139.  1G3. 

Springfield  arsenal,  181,  185. 

States,  powers  denied  to,  272. 

Stormont,  Lord,  45. 

Story,  Joseph,  276. 

Strachey,  Sir  Henry,  22. 

Strong,  Caleb,  228,  252,  279,  324, 
327. 

Succession  disputed,  289. 

Suffrage,  limitations  upon,  70. 

Sugar  trade,  138. 

Temple,  Lord,  44,  46. 

Tennessee,  18,  189,  199. 

Thayendanegea,  50. 

Thomas,  Is»i»h,  165. 

Thompson,  Gen.,  in  Massachusetts  con 
vention,  324. 

Thurlow,  Lord,  5. 

Thurston,  member  of  Virginia  legisla 
ture,  144. 

Tithing-men  in  New  England,  76. 

Tobacco  as  currency  in  Virginia,  165. 

Tories,  American  ;  see  Loyalists. 

Tories,  British,  42. 

Townshend,  Thomas,  17. 

Trade,  barbarous  superstitions  about, 
134. 

Travelling,  difficulties  of,  a  century 
ago,  61. 

Treaty  of  1783,  difficulties  in  the  way 
of,  8  ;  strange  character  of,  24 ;  pro 
visions  of,  25-33 ,  a  great  diplomatic 
victory  for  the  Americans,  34,  189; 
secret  article  relating  to  Florida 
boundary,  33,  208;  adopted,  45; 
news  arrives  in  America,  50 ;  Con 
gress  unable  to  carry  out  its  pro 
visions,  119-132,  154. 

Trespass  Act  in  New  York.  123-128- 


Trevett  vs.  Weeden,  176. 

Tucker,  Josiah,  58,  141. 

Tyler,  John,  the  elder,  214,  337. 

Union,  sentiment  of,  55. 

Unitarianism,  86. 

University  men  in  Federal  Convention, 

224. 

Vaughan,  Benjamin,  22,  35. 

Vergennes,  Count  de,  12  ;  wishes  to 
satisfy  Spain  at  the  expense  of  the 
United  States,  18-21 ;  thwarted  by 
Jay,  22  ;  accuses  the  Americans  of 
bad  faith,  33  :  tired  of  sending  loans, 
104. 

Vermont,  troubles  in,  151-153 ;  riots 
in  connection  with  the  Shays  rebel 
lion,  183. 

Vice-presidency,  282. 

Victoria,  Queea,  293. 

Vincennes,  riot  in,  210. 

Violence  of  political  invective,  39. 

Virginia,  church  and  state  in,  78-85 ; 
on  five  per  cent,  impost,  104 ;  paper 
money  in,  170 ;  takes  possession  of 
northwestern  territory,  188-191  ; 
cedes  it  to  the  United  States,  194 ; 
plan  for  new  federal  government, 
233-242  ;  its  reception  by  the  con- 
vention,  242 ;  compromise  as  to 
representation  of  slaves,  259-262; 
resents  the  compromise  between 
South  Carolina  and  the  New  Eng 
land  states,  265;  debates  on  the 
Constitution,  335-337;  ratifies  it. 
337. 

"  Visionary  young  men,"  i.  e.,  Hamil 
ton,  Madison,  Gouverneur  Morris, 
etc.,  318. 

Waddington,  Joshua,  127. 

Walpole,  Horace,  16. 

Walpole,  Sir  Robert,  296. 

War,  the  Civil,  55,  256,  262 ;  contrast 
with  Revolutionary,  101-103;  cost 
of  Revolutionary,  166. 

Washington,  George,  marches  from 
Yorktown  to  the  Hudson  River,  51  • 
disbands  the  army,  51 ;  resigns  his 
command,  52 ;  goes  home  to  Mount 
Vernon,  53  ;  his  "  legacy  "  to  the 
American  people,  54;  on  the  right 
of  coercion,  100  ;  urges  half-pay  for 
retired  officers,  106;  supposed 
scheme  for  making  him  king,  107 ; 
his  masterly  speech  at  Newhurgh, 
110;  president  of  the  Cincinnati, 
115;  on  the  weakness  of  the  con 
federation,  162 ;  wishes  to  hang 
speculators  in  breadstuffs,  164  ; 
disapproves  of  Connecticut's  reser 
vation  of  a  tract  of  western  land, 
193;  approves  of  Ohio  Company, 
203 ;  his  views  on  the  need  for 
canals  between  east  and  west,  213; 


INDEX. 


important  meeting  held  at  his 
house,  214;  is  chosen  delegate  to 
the  Federal  Convention,  221 ;  presi 
dent  of  the  convention,  229 ;  his 
solemn  warning,  231,  303 ;  his  sug 
gestion  as  to  the  basis  of  represen 
tation,  252 ;  asks  if  he  shall  put  the 
question  on  the  motion  of  Wilson 
and  I'irickney,  277  ;  disapproves  of 
electing  executive  by  the  legisla 
ture,  279;  sends  draft  of  the  Con 
stitution  to  Congress,  307 ;  called  a 
fool  by  the  Antifederalists,  313; 
approves  of  amendments,  but  op 
poses  a  second  convention,  329 ; 
unanimously  chosen  president  of 
the  United  States,  34G ;  his  journey 
to  New  York,  349;  his  inaugura 
tion,  350. 

Washington,  William,  334. 

Watson,  Bishop  of  Llandaff,  83. 

Watt,  James,  60,  267. 

Wayne,  Anthony,  50. 

Wealth  as  a  basis  of  representation, 
257. 

Webster,  Daniel,  56,  206,  276. 


Webster,  Pe1atiah,101,  2ML 

Weems,  Mason,  83. 

Wesley,  John,  85. 

West,  Rev.  Samuel,  322. 

West  India  trade,  138.  164. 

Whigs,  British,  sympathize  with  revo 
lutionary  party  in  America,  2. 

Whiskey  as  currency  in  North  Caro 
lina,  1G5. 

White,  Abraham,  324. 

Whitefield,  George,  85. 

Whitehill,  Robert,  313. 

Whitney,  Eli,  2G7. 

William  the  Silent,  55. 

Wilson,  James,  228,  243,  246,  248,  251, 
261,  274,  277,  279,  281,  282,  299,  300, 
312,  313,  316. 

Witenagemot,  66. 

Worcester  Spy,  165. 

Wraxall's  Memoirs,  2. 

Wyoming,  troubles  in,  148-150. 

Wythe,  George,  228. 

Yates,  Robert,  225,  242,  244,  246,  254, 

340,  341. 
Yazoo  boundary,  33,  208. 


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